H- 


THE 

INSURRECTION 
IN  DUBLIN 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

POEMS 
INSURRECTIONS 
THE  Hnx  OF  VISION 
GREEN  BRANCHES 


PROSE 

THE  CROCK  OF  GOLD 

HERE  ABE  T^nrFp 

THE  DEMI-GODS 


NSURREC':  [ON 


N   DUBLIN 


BY 

JAMES  STEPHENS 


fork 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1917 

All  right*  retervtd 


COPYRIGHT,  1916. 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published,  October,  1916. 
January,   1917 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

FOREWORD v 

I    MONDAY  ...;... 1 

II    TUESDAY     .      ........  28 

III  WEDNESDAY 42 

IV  THURSDAY 64 

V    FRIDAY .  71 

VI    SATURDAY 82 

VII    SUNDAY 88 

VIII  THE  INSURRECTION  Is  OVER  ....     96 

IX    THE  VOLUNTEERS 105 

X    SOME  OF  THE  LEADERS 116 

XI  LABOUR  AND  THE  INSURRECTION  .     .     .  124 

XII    THE  IRISH  QUESTIONS 134 


2081322 


FOREWORD 

THE  day  before  the  rising  was  Easter  Sun- 
day, and  they  were  crying  joyfully  in  the 
Churches  ' i  Christ  has  risen. ' '  On  the  fol- 
lowing day  they  were  saying  in  the  streets 
"  Ireland  has  risen. ' '  The  luck  of  the  mo- 
ment was  with  her.  The  auguries  were 
good,  and,  notwithstanding  all  that  has 
succeeded,  I  do  not  believe  she  must  take 
to  the  earth  again,  nor  be  ever  again 
buried.  The  pages  hereafter  were  writ- 
ten day  by  day  during  the  Insurrection 
that  followed  Holy  Week,  and,  as  a  hasty 
impression  of  a  most  singular  time,  the 
author  allows  them  to  stand  without  any 
emendation. 

The  few  chapters  which  make  up  this 
book  are  not  a  history  of  the  rising.    I 


vi  Foreword 

knew  nothing  about  the  rising.  I  do  not 
know  anything  about  it  now,  and  it  may 
be  years  before  exact  information  on  the 
subject  is  available.  What  I  have  writ- 
ten is  no  more  than  a  statement  of  what 
passed  in  one  quarter  of  our  city,  and  a 
gathering  together  of  the  rumour  and  ten- 
sion which  for  nearly  two  weeks  had  to 
serve  the  Dublin  people  in  lieu  of  news. 
It  had  to  serve  many  Dublin  people  in 
place  of  bread. 

To-day,  the  8th  of  May,  the  book  is  fin- 
ished, and,  so  far  as  Ireland  is  immedi- 
ately concerned,  the  insurrection  is  over. 
Action  now  lies  with  England,  and  on  that 
action  depends  whether  the  Irish  Insur- 
rection is  over  or  only  suppressed. 

In  their  dealings  with  this  country, 
English  Statesmen  have  seldom  shown  po- 
litical imagination;  sometimes  they  have 
been  just,  sometimes,  and  often,  unjust. 


Foreword  vii 

After  a  certain  point  I  dislike  and  despise 
justice.  It  is  an  attribute  of  God,  and  is 
adequately  managed  by  Him  alone;  but 
between  man  and  man  no  other  ethics  save 
that  of  kindness  can  give  results.  I  have 
not  any  hope  that  this  ethic  will  replace 
that,  and  I  merely  mention  it  in  order  that 
the  good  people  who  read  these  words  may 
enjoy  the  laugh  which  their  digestion 
needs. 

I  have  faith  in  man,  I  have  very  little 
faith  in  States  man.  But  I  believe  that 
the  world  moves,  and  I  believe  that  the 
weight  of  the  rolling  planet  is  going  to 
bring  freedom  to  Ireland.  Indeed,  I 
name  this  date  as  the  first  day  of  Irish 
freedom,  and  the  knowledge  forbids  me 
mourn  too  deeply  my  friends  who  are 
dead. 

It  may  not  be  worthy  of  mention,  but 
the  truth  is,  that  Ireland  is  not  cowed. 


viii  Foreword 

She  is  excited  a  little.  She  is  gay  a  little. 
She  was  not  with  the  revolution,  but  in  a 
few  months  she  will  be,  and  her  heart 
which  was  withering  will  be  warmed  by 
the  knowledge  that  men  have  thought  her 
worth  dying  for.  She  will  prepare  to 
make  herself  worthy  of  devotion,  and  that 
devotion  will  never  fail  her.  So  little 
does  it  take  to  raise  our  hearts. 

Does  it  avail  anything  to  describe  these 
things  to  English  readers?  They  have 
never  moved  the  English  mind  to  anything 
except  impatience,  but  to-day  and  at  this 
desperate  conjunction  they  may  be  less 
futile  than  heretofore.  England  also  has 
grown  patriotic,  even  by  necessity.  It  is 
necessity  alone  makes  patriots,  for  in 
times  of  peace  a  patriot  is  a  quack  when 
he  is  not  a  shark.  Idealism  pays  in  times 
of  peace,  it  dies  in  time  of  war.  Our 


*  Foreword  ix 

idealists  are  dead  and  yours  are  dying 
hourly. 

The  English  mind  may  to-day  be  en- 
abled to  understand  what  is  wrong  with  us, 
and  why  through  centuries  we  have  been 
"disthressful."  Let  them  look  at  us,  I 
do  not  say  through  the  fumes  that  are 
still  rising  from  our  ruined  streets,  but 
through  the  smoke  that  is  rolling  from  the 
North  Sea  to  Switzerland,  and  read  in 
their  own  souls  the  justification  for  all 
our  risings,  and  for  this  rising. 

Is  it  wrong  to  say  that  England  has  not 
one  friend  in  Europe?  I  say  it.  Her 
Allies  of  to-day  were  her  enemies  of  yes- 
terday, and  politics  alone  will  decide  what 
they  will  be  to-morrow.  I  say  it,  and  yet 
I  am  not  entirely  right,  for  she  has  one 
possible  friend  unless  she  should  decide 
that  even  one  friend  is  excessive  and  irks 


x  Foreword 

her.  That  one  possible  friend  is  Ireland. 
I  say,  and  with  assurance,  that  if  our  na- 
tional questions  are  arranged  there  will 
remain  no  reason  for  enmity  between  the 
two  countries,  and  there  will  remain  many 
reasons  for  friendship. 

It  may  be  objected  that  the  friendship 
of  a  country  such  as  Ireland  has  little 
value ;  that  she  is  too  small  geographically, 
and  too  thinly  populated  to  give  aid  to  any 
one.  Only  sixty  odd  years  ago  our  popu- 
lation was  close  on  ten  millions  of  people, 
nor  are  we  yet  sterile;  in  area  Ireland  is 
not  colossal,  but  neither  is  she  micro- 
scopic. Mr.  Shaw  has  spoken  of  her  as  a 
" cabbage  patch  at  the  back  of  beyond." 
On  this  kind  of  description  Rome  might 
be  called  a  hen-run  and  Greece  a  back 
yard.  The  sober  fact  is  that  Ireland  has  a 
larger  geographical  area  than  many  an  in- 
dependent and  prosperous  European  king- 


'Foreword  xi 

dom,  and  for  all  human  and  social  needs 
she  is  a  fairly  big  country,  and  is  beauti- 
ful and  fertile  to  boot.  She  could  be  made 
worth  knowing  if  goodwill  and  trust  are 
available  for  the  task. 

I  believe  that  what  is  known  as  the 
" mastery  of  the  seas"  will,  when  the  great 
war  is  finished,  pass  irretrievably  from 
the  hands  or  the  ambition  of  any  nation, 
and  that  more  urgently  than  ever  in  her 
history  England  will  have  need  of  a  friend. 
It  is  true  that  we  might  be  her  enemy  and 
might  do  her  some  small  harm — it  is  truer 
that  we  could  be  her  friend,  and  could  be 
of  very  real  assistance  to  her. 

Should  the  English  Statesman  decide 
that  our  friendship  is  worth  having  let 
him  create  a  little  of  the  political  imagina- 
tion already  spoken  of.  Let  him  equip  us 
(it  is  England's  debt  to  Ireland)  for  free- 
dom, not  in  the  manner  of  a  miser  who  ar- 


xii  Foreword 

ranges  for  the  chilly  livelihood  of  a  needy 
female  relative;  but  the  way  a  wealthy 
father  would  undertake  the  settlement  of 
his  son.  I  fear  I  am  assisting  my  reader 
to  laugh  too  much,  but  laughter  is  the  sole 
excess  that  is  wholesome. 

If  freedom  is  to  come  to  Ireland — as  I 
believe  it  is — ^then  the  Easter  Insurrection 
was  the  only  thing  that  could  have  hap- 
pened. I  speak  as  an  Irishman,  and  am 
momentarily  leaving  out  of  account  every 
other  consideration.  If,  after  all  her 
striving,  freedom  had  come  to  her  as  a 
gift,  as  a  peaceful  present  such  as  is  some- 
times given  away  with  a  pound  of  tea,  Ire- 
land would  have  accepted  the  gift  with 
shamefacedness,  and  have  felt  that  her 
centuries  of  revolt  had  ended  in  something 
very  like  ridicule.  The  blood  of  brave 
men  had  to  sanctify  such  a  consummation 
if  the  national  imagination  was  to  be 


Foreword  xiii 

stirred  to  the  dreadful  business  which  is 
the  organising  of  freedom,  and  both  imagi- 
nation and  brains  have  been  stagnant  in 
Ireland  this  many  a  year.  Following  on 
such  tameness,  failure  might  have  been 
predicted,  or,  at  least  feared,  and  war  (let 
us  call  it  war  for  the  sake  of  our  pride) 
was  due  to  Ireland  before  she  could  enter 
gallantly  on  her  inheritance.  We  might 
have  crept  into  liberty  like  some  kind  of 
domesticated  man,  whereas  now  we  may 
be  allowed  to  march  into  freedom  with  the 
honours  of  war.  I  am  still  appealing  to 
the  political  imagination,  for  if  England 
allows  Ireland  to  formally  make  peace 
with  her  that  peace  will  be  lasting,  ever- 
lasting; but  if  the  liberty  you  give  us  is  all 
half-measures,  and  distrusts  and  stingi- 
nesses, then  what  is  scarcely  worth  accept- 
ing will  hardly  be  worth  thanking  you, for. 
There  is  a  reference  in  the  earlier  pages 


xiy  Foreword 

of  this  record  to  a  letter  which  I  addressed 
to  Mr.  George  Bernard  Shaw  and  pub- 
lished in  the  New  Age.  This  was  a 
thoughtless  letter,  and  subsequent  events 
have  proved  that  it  was  unmeaning  and  ri- 
diculous. I  have  since,  through  the  same 
hospitable  journal,  apologised  to  Mr. 
Shaw,  but  have  let  my  reference  to  the 
matter  stand  as  an  indication  that  elec- 
tricity was  already  in  the  air.  Every 
statement  I  made  about  him  in  that  letter 
and  in  this  book  was  erroneous ;  for,  after- 
wards, when  it  would  have  been  politic  to 
run  for  cover,  he  ran  for  the  open,  and  he 
spoke  there  like  the  valiant  thinker  and 
great  Irishman  that  he  is. 

Since  the  foregoing  was  written  events 
have  moved  in  this  country.  The  situa- 
tion is  no  longer  the  same.  The  execu- 
tions have  taken  place.  One  cannot  justly 


Foreword  xv 

exclaim  against  the  measures  adopted  by 
the  military  tribunal,  and  yet,  in  the  in- 
terests of  both  countries  one  may  deplore 
them.  I  have  said  there  was  no  bitterness 
in  Ireland,  and  it  was  true  at  the  time  of 
writing.  It  is  no  longer  true;  but  it  is 
still  possible  by  generous  Statesmanship 
to  allay  this,  and  to  seal  a  true  union  be- 
tween Ireland  and  England. 


THE  INSURRECTION  IN 
DUBLIN 

\ 

CHAPTER  I 

MONDAY 

THIS  has  taken  every  one  by  surprise.  It 
is  possible,  that,  with  the  exception  of 
their  Staff,  it  has  taken  the  Volunteers 
themselves  by  surprise;  but,  to-day,  our 
peaceful  city  is  no  longer  peaceful;  guns 
are  sounding,  or  rolling  and  crackling 
from  different  directions,  and,  although 
rarely,  the  rattle  of  machine  guns  can  be 
heard  also. 

Two  days  ago  war  seemed  very  far 
away — so  far,  that  I  have  covenanted 
with  myself  to  learn  the  alphabet  of 


2          The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

music.  Tom  Bodkin  had  promised  to 
present  me  with  a  musical  instrument 
called  a  dulcimer — I  persist  in  thinking 
that  this  is  a  species  of  guitar,  although 
I  am  assured  that  it  is  a  number  of  small 
metal  plates  which  are  struck  with  sticks, 
and  I  confess  that  this  description  of  its 
function  prejudices  me  more  than  a  little 
against  it.  There  is  no  reason  why  I 
should  think  dubiously  of  such  an  instru- 
ment, but  I  do  not  relish  the  idea  of  pro- 
curing music  with  a  stick.  With  this  dul- 
cimer I  shall  be  able  to  tap  out  our  Irish 
melodies  when  I  am  abroad,  and  transport 
myself  to  Ireland  for  a  few  minutes,  or  a 
few  bars. 

In  preparation  for  this  present  I  had 
through  Saturday  and  Sunday  been  learn- 
ing the  notes  of  the  Scale.  The  notes  and 
spaces  on  the  lines  did  not  trouble  me 
much,  but  those  above  and  below  the  line 


Monday  3 

seemed  ingenious  and  complicated  to  a 
degree  that  frightened  me. 

On  Saturday  I  got  the  Irish  Times,  and 
found  in  it  a  long  article  by  Bernard 
Shaw  (reprinted  from  the  New  York 
Times).  One  reads  things  written  by 
Shaw.  Why  one  does  read  them  I  do  not 
know  exactly,  except  that  it  is  a  habit  we 
got  into  years  ago,  and  we  read  an  article 
by  Shaw  just  as  we  put  on  our  boots  in 
the  morning — that  is,  without  thinking 
about  it,  and  without  any  idea  of  reward. 

His  article  angered  me  exceedingly.  It 
was  called  "  Irish  Nonsense  talked  in  Ire- 
land." It  was  written  (as  is  almost  all  of 
his  journalistic  work)  with  that  'bonhomie 
which  he  has  cultivated — it  is  his  manner- 
ism— and  which  is  essentially  hypocritical 
and  untrue.  Bonhomie!  It  is  that  man- 
of-the-world  attitude,  that  shop  attitude, 
that  between-you-and-me-for-a^e-we-not- 


4          The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

equal-and-cultured  attitude,  which  is  the 
tone  of  a  card-sharper  or  a  trick-of-the- 
loop  man.  That  was  the  tone  of  Shaw's 
article.  I  wrote  an  open  letter  to  him 
which  I  sent  to  the  New  Age,  because  I 
doubted  that  the  Dublin  papers  would 
print  it  if  I  sent  it  to  them,  and  I  knew 
that  the  Irish  people  who  read  the  other 
papers  had  never  heard  of  Shaw,  except  as 
a  trade-mark  under  which  very  good 
Limerick  bacon  is  sold,  and  that  they 
would  not  be  interested  in  the  opinions  of 
a  person  named  Shaw  on  any  subject  not 
relevant  to  bacon.  I  struck  out  of  my  let- 
ter a  good  many  harsh  things  which  I  said 
of  him,  and  hoped  he  would  reply  to  it  in 
order  that  I  could  furnish  these  acidities 
to  him  in  a  second  letter. 

That  was  Saturday. 

On  Sunday  I  had  to  go  to  my  office,  as 
the  Director  was  absent  in  London,  and 


Monday  5 

there  I  applied  myself  to  the  notes  and 
spaces  below  the  stave,  but  relinquished 
the  exercise,  convinced  that  these  mys- 
teries were  unattainable  by  man,  while  the 
knowledge  that  above  the  stave  there  were 
others  and  not  less  complex,  stayed 
mournfully  with  me. 

I  returned  home,  and  as  novels  (per- 
haps it  is  only  for  the  duration  of  the  war) 
do  not  now  interest  me  I  read  for  some 
time  in  Madame  Blavatsky's  "Secret 
Doctrine,"  which  book  interests  me  pro- 
foundly. George  Russell  was  out  of  town 
or  I  would  have  gone  round  to  his  house  in 
the  evening  to  tell  him  what  I  thought 
about  Shaw,  and  to  listen  to  his  own  much 
finer  ideas  on  that  as  on  every  other  sub- 
ject. I  went  to  bed. 

On  the  morning  following  I  awoke  into 
full  insurrection  and  bloody  war,  but  I  did 
not  know  anything  about  it.  It  was  Bank 


6          The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

Holiday,  but  for  employments  such  as 
mine  there  are  not  any  holidays,  so  I  went 
to  my  office  at  the  usual  hour,  and  after 
transacting  what  business  was  necessary  I 
bent  myself  to  the  notes  above  and  below 
the  stave,  and  marvelled  anew  at  the  in- 
genuity of  man.  Peace  was  in  the  build- 
ing, and  if  any  of  the  attendants  had 
knowledge  or  rumour  of  war  they  did  not 
mention  it  to  me. 

At  one  o'clock  I  went  to  lunch.  Pass- 
ing the  corner  of  Merrion  Row  I  saw  two 
small  groups  of  people.  These  people 
were  regarding  steadfastly  in  the  direc- 
tion of  St.  Stephen's  Green  Park,  and 
they  spoke  occasionally  to  one  another 
with  that  detached  confidence  which 
proved  they  were  mutually  unknown.  I 
also,  but  without  approaching  them,  stared 
in  the  direction  of  the  Green.  I  saw  noth- 
ing but  the  narrow  street  which  widened 


Monday  1 

to  the  Park.  Some  few  people  were 
standing  in  tentative  attitudes,  and  all 
looking  in  the  one  direction.  As  I  turned 
from  them  homewards  I  received  an  im- 
pression of  silence  and  expectation  and 
excitement. 

On  the  way  home  I  noticed  that  many 
silent  people  were  standing  in  their  door- 
ways— an  unusual  thing  in  Dublin  outside 
of  the  back  streets.  The  glance  of  a  Dub- 
lin man  or  woman  conveys  generally  a 
criticism  of  one's  personal  appearance, 
and  is  a  little  hostile  to  the  passer.  The 
look  of  each  person  as  I  passed  was  stead- 
fast, and  contained  an  enquiry  instead  of 
a  criticism.  I  felt  faintly  uneasy,  but 
withdrew  my  mind  to  a  meditation  which 
I  had  covenanted  with  myself  to  perform 
daily,  and  passed  to  my  house. 

There  I  was  told  that  there  had  been  a 
great  deal  of  rifle  firing  all  the  morning, 


8          The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

and  we  concluded  that  the  Military  re- 
cruits or  Volunteer  detachments  were 
practising  that  arm.  My  return  to  busi- 
ness was  by  the  way  I  had  already  come. 
At  the  corner  of  Merrion  Row  I  found 
the  same  silent  groups,  who  were  still 
looking  in  the  direction  of  the  Green,  and 
addressing  each  other  occasionally  with 
the  detached  confidence  of  strangers. 
Suddenly,  and  on  the  spur  of  the  moment, 
I  addressed,  one  of  these  silent  gazers. 

"Has  there  been  an  accident?"  said  I. 

I  indicated  the  people  standing  about. 

"What's  all  this  for?" 

He  was  a  sleepy,  rough-looking  man 
about  40  years  of  age,  with  a  blunt  red 
moustache,  and  the  distant  eyes  which  one 
sees  in  sailors.  He  looked  at  me,  stared 
at  me  as  at  a  person  from  a  different  coun- 
try. He  grew  wakeful  and  vivid. 

"Don't  you  know?"  said  he. 


Monday  9 

And  then  he  saw  that  I  did  not  know. 

"The  Sinn  Feiners  have  seized  the  City 
this  morning." 

"Oh!"  said  I. 

He  continued  with  the  savage  earnest- 
ness of  one  who  has  amazement  in  his 
mouth : 

"They  seized  the  City  at  eleven  o'clock 
this  morning.  The  Green  there  is  full  of 
them.  They  have  captured  the  Castle. 
They  have  taken  the  Post  Office." 

"My  God!"  said  I,  staring  at  him,  and 
instantly  I  turned  and  went  running  to- 
wards the  Green. 

In  a  few  seconds  I  banished  astonish- 
ment and  began  to  walk.  As  I  drew  near 
the  Green  rifle  fire  began  like  sharply- 
cracking  whips.  It  was  from  the  further 
side.  I  saw  that  the  Gates  were  closed 
and  men  were  standing  inside  with  guns 
on  their  shoulders.  I  passed  a  house,  the 


10        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

windows  of  which  were  smashed  in.  As 
I  went  by  a  man  in  civilian  clothes  slipped 
through  the  Park  gates,  which  instantly 
closed  behind  him.  He  ran  towards  me, 
and  I  halted.  He  was  carrying  two  small 
packets  in  his  hand.  He  passed  me  hur- 
riedly, and,  placing  his  leg  inside  the 
broken  window  of  the  house  behind  me, 
he  disappeared.  Almost  immediately  an- 
other man  in  civilian  clothes  appeared 
from  the  broken  window  of  another  house. 
He  also  had  something  (I  don't  know 
what)  in  his  hand.  He  ran  urgently  to- 
wards the  gates,  which  opened,  admitted 
him,  and  closed  again. 

In  the  centre  of  this  side  of  the  Park  a 
rough  barricade  of  carts  and  motor  cars 
had  been  sketched.  It  was  still  full  of 
gaps.  Behind  it  was  a  halted  tram,  and 
along  the  vistas  of  the  Green  one  saw 
other  trams  derelict,  untenanted. 


Monday  11 

I  came  to  the  barricade.  As  I  reached 
it  and  stood  by  the  Shelbourne  Hotel, 
which  it  faced,  a  loud  cry  came  from  the 
Park.  The  gates  opened  and  three  men 
ran  out.  Two  of  them  held  rifles  with 
fixed  bayonets.  The  third  gripped  a 
heavy  revolver  in  his  fist.  They  ran  to- 
wards a  motor  car  which  had  just  turned 
the  corner,  and  halted  it.  The  men  with 
bayonets  took  position  instantly  on  either 
side  of  the  car.  The  man  with  the  re- 
volver saluted,  and  I  heard  him  begging 
the  occupants  to  pardon  him,  and  direct- 
ing them  to  dismount.  A  man  and  woman 
got  down.  They  were  again  saluted  and 
requested  to  go  to  the  sidewalk.  They 
did  so. 

The  man  crossed  and  stood  by  me.    He 

NOTE — As  I  pen  these  words  rifle  shot  is  cracking  from 
three  different  directions  and  continually.  Three  minutes 
ago  there  was  two  discharges  from  heavy  guns.  These  are 
the  first  heavy  guns  used  in  the  Insurrection,  25th  April. 


12        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

was  very  tall  and  thin,  middle-aged,  with 
a  shaven,  wasted  face.  "I  want  to  get 
down  to  Armagh  to-day,"  he  said  to  no  one 
in  particular.  The  loose  bluish  skin  un- 
der his  eyes  was  twitching.  The  Volun- 
teers directed  the  chauffeur  to  drive  to  the 
barricade  and  lodge  his  car  in  a  particu- 
lar position  there.  He  did  it  awkwardly, 
and  after  three  attempts  he  succeeded  in 
pleasing  them.  He  was  a  big,  brown- 
faced  man,  whose  knees  were  rather  high 
for  the  seat  he  was  in,  and  they  jerked  with 
the  speed  and  persistence  of  something 
moved  with  a  powerful  spring.  His  face 
was  composed  and  fully  under  command, 
although  his  legs  were  not.  He  locked  the 
car  into  the  barricade,  and  then,  being  a 
man  accustomed  to  be  commanded,  he 
awaited  an  order  to  descend.  When  the 
order  came  he  walked  directly  to  his  mas- 
ter, still  preserving  all  the  solemnity  of  his 


Monday  13 

features.  These  two  men  did  not  address 
a  word  to  each  other,  but  their  drilled  and 
expressionless  eyes  were  loud  with  sur- 
prise and  fear  and  rage.  They  went  into 
the  Hotel. 

I  spoke  to  the  man  with  the  revolver. 
He  was  no  more  than  a  boy,  not  more  cer- 
tainly than  twenty  years  of  age,  short  in 
stature,  with  close  curling  red  hair  and 
blue  eyes — a  kindly-looking  lad.  The 
strap  of  his  sombrero  had  torn  loose  on 
one  side,  and  except  while  he  held  it  in  his 
teeth  it  flapped  about  his  chin.  His  face 
was  sunburnt  and  grimy  with  dust  and 
sweat. 

This  young  man  did  not  appear  to  me 
to  be  acting  from  his  reason.  He  was 
doing  his  work  from  a  determination  im- 
planted previously,  days,  weeks  perhaps, 
on  his  imagination.  His  mind  was — 
where?  It  was  not  with  his  body.  And 


14        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

continually  his  eyes  went  searching 
widely,  looking  for  spaces,  scanning  hast- 
ily the  clouds,  the  vistas  of  the  streets, 
looking  for  something  that  did  not  hinder 
him,  looking  away  for  a  moment  from  the 
immediacies  and  rigours  which  were  im- 
pressed where  his  mind  had  been. 

When  I  spoke  he  looked  at  me,  and  I 
know  that  for  some  seconds  he  did  not  see 
me.  I  said : — 

"What  is  the  meaning  of  all  this? 
What  has  happened?" 

He  replied  collectedly  enough  in  speech, 
but  with  that  ramble  and  errancy  cloud- 
ing his  eyes. 

"We  have  taken  the  City.  We  are  ex- 
pecting an  attack  from  the  military  at  any 
moment,  and  those  people,"  he  indicated 
knots  of  men,  women  and  children  clus- 
tered towards  the  end  of  the  Green, 
"won't  go  home  for  me.  We  have  the 


Monday  15 

Post  Office,  and  the  Railways,  and  the 
Castle.  We  have  all  the  City.  "We  have 
everything." 

(Some  men  and  two  women  drew  behind 
me  to  listen.) 

"This  morning,"  said  he,  "the  police 
rushed  us.  One  ran  at  me  to  take  my  re- 
volver. I  fired  but  I  missed  him,  and  I 
hit  a " 

"You  have  far  too  much  talk,"  said  a 
voice  to  the  young  man. 

I  turned  a  few  steps  away,  and  glanc- 
ing back  saw  that  he  was  staring  after  me, 
but  I  know  that  he  did  not  see  me — he  was 
looking  at  turmoil,  and  blood,  and  at  fig- 
ures that  ran  towards  him  and  ran  away — 
a  world  in  motion  and  he  in  the  centre  of  it 
astonished. 

The  men  with  him  did  not  utter  a  sound. 
They  were  both  older.  One,  indeed,  a 
short,  sturdy  man,  had  a  heavy  white 


16        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

moustache.  He  was  quite  collected,  and 
took  no  notice  of  the  skies,  or  the  spaces. 
He  saw  a  man  in  rubbers  placing  his  hand 
on  a  motor  bicycle  in  the  barricade,  and 
called  to  him  instantly :  ' '  Let  that  alone. ' ' 

The  motorist  did  not  at  once  remove  his 
hand,  whereupon  the  white-moustached 
man  gripped  his  gun  in  both  hands  and 
ran  violently  towards  him.  He  ran  di- 
rectly to  him,  body  to  body,  and,  as  he  was 
short  and  the  motorist  was  very  tall, 
stared  fixedly  up  in  his  face.  He  roared 
up  at  his  face  in  a  mighty  voice. 

* l  Are  you  deaf  ?  Are  you  deaf  ?  Move 
back!" 

The  motorist  moved  away,  pursued  by 
an  eye  as  steady  and  savage  as  the  point 
of  the  bayonet  that  was  level  with  it. 

Another  motor  car  came  round  the  Ely 
Place  corner  of  the  Green  and  wobbled  at 
the  sight  of  the  barricade.  The  three  men 


Monday  17 

who  had  returned  to  the  gates  roared 
"Halt,"  but  the  driver  made  a  tentative 
effort  to  turn  his  wheel.  A  great  shout 
of  many  voices  came  then,  and  the  three 
men  ran  to  him. 

"Drive  to  the  barricade,"  came  the  or- 
der. 

The  driver  turned  his  wheel  a  point  fur- 
ther towards  escape,  and  instantly  one  of 
the  men  clapped  a  gun  to  the  wheel  and 
blew  the  tyre  open.  Some  words  were 
exchanged,  and  then  a  shout: 

"Drive  it  on  the  rim,  drive  it." 

The  tone  was  very  menacing,  and  the 
motorist  turned  his  car  slowly  to  the  barri- 
cade and  placed  it  in. 

For  an  hour  I  tramped  the  City,  see- 
ing everywhere  these  knots  of  watchful 
strangers  speaking  together  in  low  tones, 
and  it  sank  into  my  mind  that  what  I  had 
heard  was  true,  and  that  the  City  was  in 


18        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

insurrection.  It  had  been  promised  for 
so  long,  and  had  been  threatened  for  so 
long.  Now  it  was  here.  I  had  seen  it  in 
the  Green,  others  had  seen  it  in  other  parts 
— the  same  men  clad  in  dark  green  and 
equipped  with  rifle,  bayonet,  and  bando- 
lier, the  same  silent  activity.  The  police 
had  disappeared  from  the  streets.  At 
that  hour  I  did  not  see  one  policeman,  nor 
did  I  see  one  for  many  days,  and  men  said 
that  several  of  them  had  been  shot  earlier 
in  the  morning;  that  an  officer  had  been 
shot  on  Portobello  Bridge,  that  many  sol- 
diers had  been  killed,  and  that  a  good 
many  civilians  were  dead  also. 

Around  me  as  I  walked  the  rumour  of 
war  and  death  was  in  the  air.  Continu- 
ally and  from  every  direction  rifles  were 
crackling  and  rolling;  sometimes  there 
was  only  one  shot,  again  it  would  be  a  roll 
of  firing  crested  with  single,  short  explo- 


Monday  19 

sions,  and  sinking  again  to  whip-like  snaps 
and  whip-like  echoes ;  then  for  a  moment 
silence,  and  then  again  the  guns  leaped  in 
the  air. 

The  rumour  of  positions,  bridges,  pub- 
lic places,  railway  stations,  Government 
offices,  having  been  seized  was  persistent, 
and  was  not  denied  by  any  voice. 

I  met  some  few  people  I  knew.  P.  H., 
T.  M.,  who  said:  "Well!"  and  thrust 
their  eyes  into  me  as  though  they  were 
rummaging  me  for  information. 

But  there  were  not  very  many  people  in 
the  streets.  The  greater  part  of  the  popu- 
lation were  away  on  Bank  Holiday,  and 
did  not  know  anything  of  this  business. 
Many  of  them  would  not  know  anything 
until  they  found  they  had  to  walk  home 
from  Kingstown,  Dalkey,  Howth,  or  wher- 
ever they  were. 

I  returned  to  my  office,  decided  that  I 


20        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

would  close  it  for  the  day.  The  men  were 
very  relieved  when  I  came  in,  and  were 
more  relieved  when  I  ordered  the  gong  to 
be  sounded.  There  were  some  few  people 
in  the  place,  and  they  were  soon  put  out. 
The  outer  gates  were  locked,  and  the  great 
door,  but  I  kept  the  men  on  duty  until  the 
evening.  We  were  the  last  public  institu- 
tion open;  all  the  others  had  been  closed 
for  hours. 

I  went  upstairs  and  sat  down,  but  had 
barely  reached  the  chair  before  I  stood  up 
again,  and  began  to  pace  my  room,  to  and 
fro,  to  and  fro;  amazed,  expectant,  in- 
quiet  ;  turning  my  ear  to  the  shots,  and  my 
mind  to  speculations  that  began  in  the 
middle,  and  were  chased  from  there  by 
others  before  they  had  taken  one  thought 
forward.  But  then  I  took  myself  reso- 
lutely and  sat  me  down,  and  I  pencilled  out 
exercises  above  the  stave,  and  under  the 


Monday  21 

stave ;  and  discovered  suddenly  that  I  was 
again  marching  the  floor,  to  and  fro,  to 
and  fro,  with  thoughts  bursting  about  my 
head  as  though  they  were  fired  on  me  from 
concealed  batteries. 

At  five  o'clock  I  left.  I  met  Miss  P., 
all  of  whose  rumours  coincided  with  those 
I  had  gathered.  She  was  in  exceeding 
good  humour  and  interested.  Leaving 
her  I  met  Cy — ,  and  we  turned  together 
up  to  the  Green.  As  we  proceeded,  the 
sound  of  firing  grew  more  distinct,  but 
when  we  reached  the  Green  it  died  away 
again.  We  stood  a  little  below  the  Shel- 
bourne  Hotel,  looking  at  the  barricade  and 
into  the  Park.  We  could  see  nothing. 
Not  a  Volunteer  was  in  sight.  The  Green 
seemed  a  desert.  There  were  only  the 
trees  to  be  seen,  and  through  them  small 
green  vistas  of  sward. 

Just  then  a  man  stepped  on  the  footpath 


22        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

and  walked  directly  to  the  barricade.  He 
stopped  and  gripped  the  shafts  of  a  lorry 
lodged  near  the  centre.  At  that  instant 
the  Park  exploded  into  life  and  sound; 
from  nowhere  armed  men  appeared  at  the 
railings,  and  they  all  shouted  at  the  man. 

"Put  down  that  lorry.  Let  out  and  go 
away.  Let  out  at  once." 

These  were  the  cries.  The  man  did  not 
let  out.  He  halted  with  the  shafts  in  his 
hand,  and  looked  towards  the  vociferous 
palings.  Then,  and  very  slowly,  he  be- 
gan to  draw  the  lorry  out  of  the  barricade. 
The  shouts  came  to  him  again,  very  loud, 
very  threatening,  but  he  did  not  attend  to 
them. 

"He  is  the  man  that  owns  the  lorry," 
said  a  voice  beside  me. 

Dead  silence  fell  on  the  people  around 
while  the  man  slowly  drew  his  cart  down 
by  the  footpath.  Then  three  shots  rang 


Monday  23 

out  in  succession.  At  the  distance  he 
could  not  be  missed,  and  it  was  obvious 
they  were  trying  to  frighten  him.  He 
dropped  the  shafts,  and  instead  of  going 
away  he  walked  over  to  the  Volunteers. 

"He  has  a  nerve,"  said  another  voice 
behind  me. 

The  man  walked  directly  towards  the 
Volunteers,  who,  to  the  number  of  about 
ten,  were  lining  the  railings.  He  walked 
slowly,  bent  a  little  forward,  with  one  hand 
raised  and  one  finger  up  as  though  he  were 
going  to  make  a  speech.  Ten  guns  were 
pointing  at  him,  and  a  voice  repeated 
many  times : 

"Go  and  put  back  that  lorry  or  you  are 
a  dead  man.  Go  before  I  count  four. 
One,  two,  three,  four 

A  rifle  spat  at  him,  and  in  two  undulat- 
ing movements  the  man  sank  on  himself 
and  sagged  to  the  ground. 


24        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

I  ran  to  him  with  some  others,  while  a 
woman  screamed  unmeaningly,  all  on  one 
strident  note.  The  man  was  picked  up 
and  carried  to  a  hospital  beside  the  Arts 
Club.  There  was  a  hole  in  the  top  of  his 
head,  and  one  does  not  know  how  ugly 
blood  can  look  until  it  has  been  seen  clotted 
in  hair.  As  the  poor  man  was  being  car- 
ried in,  a  woman  plumped  to  her  knees  in 
the  road  and  began  not  to  scream  but  to 
screech. 

At  that  moment  the  Volunteers  were 
hated.  The  men  by  whom  I  was  and  who 
were  lifting  the  body,  roared  into  the  rail- 
ings:— 

"We'll  be  coming  back  for  you,  damn 
you." 

From  the  railings  there  came  no  reply, 
and  in  an  instant  the  place  was  again 
desert  and  silent,  and  the  little  green  vistas 
were  slumbering  among  the  trees. 


Monday  25 

No  one  seemed  able  to  estimate  the  num- 
ber of  men  inside  the  Green,  and  through 
the  day  no  considerable  body  of  men  had 
been  seen,  only  those  who  held  the  gates, 
and  the  small  parties  of  threes  and  fours 
who  arrested  motors  and  carts  for  their 
barricades.  Among  these  were  some  who 
were  only  infants — one  boy  seemed  about 
twelve  years  of  age.  He  was  strutting  the 
centre  of  the  road  with  a  large  revolver 
in  his  small  fist.  A  motor  car  came  by 
him  containing  three  men,  and  in  the 
shortest  of  time  he  had  the  car  lodged  in 
his  barricade,  and  dismissed  its  stupefied 
occupants  with  a  wave  of  his  armed  hand. 

The  knots  were  increasing  about  the 
streets,  for  now  the  Bank  Holiday  people 
began  to  wander  back  from  places  that 
were  not  distant,  and  to  them  it  had  all  to 
be  explained  anew.  Free  movement  was 
possible  everywhere  in  the  City,  but  the 


26        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

constant  crackle  of  rifles  restricted  some- 
what that  freedom.  Up  to  one  o'clock  at 
night  belated  travellers  were  straggling 
into  the  City,  and  curious  people  were 
wandering  from  group  to  group  still  try- 
ing to  gather  information. 

I  remained  awake  until  four  o'clock  in 
the  morning.  Every  five  minutes  a  rifle 
cracked  somewhere,  but  about  a  quarter  to 
twelve  sharp  volleying  came  from  the  di- 
rection of  Portobello  Bridge,  and  died 
away  after  some  time.  The  windows  of 
my  flat  listen  out  towards  the  Green,  and 
obliquely  towards  Sackville  Street.  In 
another  quarter  of  an  hour  there  were  vol- 
leys from  Stephen's  Green  direction,  and 
this  continued  with  intensity  for  about 
twenty-five  minutes.  Then  it  fell  into  a 
sputter  of  fire  and  ceased. 

I  went  to  bed  about  four  o'clock  con- 
vinced that  the  Green  had  been  rushed  by 


Monday  27 

the  military  and  captured,  and  that  the 
rising  was  at  an  end. 

That  was  the  first  day  of  the  insurrec- 
tion. 


CHAPTER  II 

TUESDAY 

A  SULTRY,  lowering  day,  and  dusk  skies 
fat  with  rain. 

I  left  for  my  office,  believing  that  the  in- 
surrection was  at  an  end.  At  a  corner  I 
asked  a  man  was  it  all  finished.  He  said 
it  was  not,  and  that,  if  anything,  it  was 
worse. 

On  this  day  the  rumours  began,  and  I 
think  it  will  be  many  a  year  before  the 
rumours  cease.  The  Irish  Times  pub- 
lished an  edition  which  contained  nothing 
but  an  official  Proclamation  that  evilly- 
disposed  persons  had  disturbed  the  peace, 
and  that  the  situation  was  well  in  hand. 
The  news  stated  in  three  lines  that  there 

28 


Tuesday  29 

was  a  Sinn  Fein  rising  in  Dublin,  and  that 
the  rest  of  the  country  was  quiet. 

No  English  or  country  papers  came. 
There  was  no  delivery  or  collection  of  let- 
ters. All  the  shops  in  the  City  were  shut. 
There  was  no  traffic  of  any  kind  in  the 
streets.  There  was  no  way  of  gathering 
any  kind  of  information,  and  rumour  gave 
all  the  news. 

It  seemed  that  the  Military  and  the 
Government  had  been  taken  unawares. 
It  was  Bank  Holiday,  and  many  military 
officers  had  gone  to  the  races,  or  were  away 
on  leave,  and  prominent  members  of  the 
Irish  Government  had  gone  to  England 
on  Sunday. 

It  appeared  that  everything  claimed  on 
the  previous  day  was  true,  and  that  the 
City  of  Dublin  was  entirely  in  the  hands 
of  the  Volunteers.  They  had  taken  and 
sacked  Jacob's  Biscuit  Factory,  and  had 


30        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

converted  it  into  a  fort  which  they  held. 
They  had  the  Post  Office,  and  were  build- 
ing barricades  around  it  ten  feet  high 
of  sandbags,  cases,  wire  entanglements. 
They  had  pushed  out  all  the  windows  and 
sandbagged  them  to  half  their  height, 
while  cart-loads  of  food,  vegetables  and 
ammunition  were  going  in  continually. 
They  had  dug  trenches  and  were  laying 
siege  to  one  of  the  city  barracks. 

It  was  current  that  intercourse  between 
Germany  and  Ireland  had  been  frequent 
chiefly  by  means  of  submarines,  which 
came  up  near  the  coast  and  landed  ma- 
chine guns,  rifles  and  ammunition.  It 
was  believed  also  that  the  whole  country 
had  risen,  and  that  many  strong  places 
and  cities  were  in  the  hands  of  the  Volun- 
teers. Cork  Barracks  was  said  to  be 
taken  while  the  officers  were  away  at  the 
Curragh  races,  that  the  men  without  of- 


Tuesday  31 

it 

ficers  were  disorganised,  and  the  place 
easily  captured. 

It  was  said  that  Germans,  thousands 
strong,  had  landed,  and  that  many  Irish 
Americans  with  German  officers  had  ar- 
rived also  with  full  military  equipment. 

On  the  previous  day  the  Volunteers  had 
proclaimed  the  Irish  Kepublic.  This  cere- 
mony was  conducted  from  the  Mansion 
House  steps,  and  the  manifesto  was  said 
to  have  been  read  by  Pearse,  of  St.  Enda's. 
The  Republican  and  Volunteer  flag  was 
hoisted  on  the  Mansion  House.  The  lat- 
ter consisted  of  vertical  colours  of  green, 
white , and  orange.  Kerry  wireless  station 
was  reported  captured,  and  news  of  the 
Kepublic  flashed  abroad.  These  rumours 
were  flying  in  the  street. 

It  was  also  reported  that  two  transports 
had  come  in  the  night  and  had  landed  from 
England  about  8,000  soldiers.  An  attack 


32        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

reported  on  the  Post  Office  by  a  troop  of 
lancers  who  were  received  with  fire  and 
repulsed.  It  is  foolish  to  send  cavalry 
into  street  war. 

In  connection  with  this  lancer  charge  at 
the  Post  Office  it  is  said  that  the  people, 
and  especially  the  women,  sided  with  the 
soldiers,  and  that  the  Volunteers  were  as- 
sailed by  these  women  with  bricks,  bottles, 
sticks,  to  cries  of: 

"Would  you  be  hurting  the  poor  men?" 

There  were  other  angry  ladies  who 
threatened  Volunteers,  addressing  to  them 
this  petrifying  query : 

"  Would  you  be  hurting  the  poor 
horses?" 

Indeed,  the  best  people  in  the  world  live 
in  Dublin. 

The  lancers  retreated  to  the  bottom  of 
Sackville  Street,  where  they  remained  for 
some  time  in  the  centre  of  a  crowd  whq> 


Tuesday  33 

were  caressing  their  horses.  It  may  have 
seemed  to  them  a  rather  curious  kind  of 
insurrection — that  is,  if  they  were  stran- 
gers to  Ireland. 

In  the  Post  Office  neighbourhood  the 
Volunteers  had  some  difficulty  in  dealing 
with  the  people  who  surged  about  them 
while  they  were  preparing  the  barricade, 
and  hindered  them  to  some  little  extent. 
One  of  the  Volunteers  was  particularly 
noticeable.  He  held  a  lady's  umbrella  in 
his  hand,  and  whenever  some  person  be- 
came particularly  annoying  he  would  leap 
the  barricade  and  chase  his  man  half  a 
street,  hitting  him  over  the  head  with  the 
umbrella.  It  was  said  that  the  wonder  of 
the  world  was  not  that  Ireland  was  at  war, 
but  that  after  many  hours  the  umbrella 
was  still  unbroken.  A  Volunteer  night 
attack  on  the  Quays  was  spoken  of, 
whereat  the  military  were  said  to  have 


34        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

been  taken  by  surprise  and  six  carts  of 
their  ammunition  captured.  This  was 
probably  untrue.  Also,  that  the  Volun- 
teers had  blown  up  the  Arsenal  in  the 
Phoenix  Park. 

There  had  been  looting  in  the  night 
about  Sackville  Street,  and  it  was  current 
that  the  Volunteers  had  shot  twenty  of  the 
looters. 

The  shops  attacked  were  mainly  haber- 
dashers, shoe  shops,  and  sweet  shops. 
Very  many  sweet  shops  were  raided,  and 
until  the  end  of  the  rising  sweet  shops 
were  the  favourite  mark  of  the  looters. 
There  is  something  comical  in  this  looting 
of  sweet  shops — something  almost  inno- 
cent and  child-like.  Possibly  most  of  the 
looters  are  children  who  are  having  the 
sole  gorge  of  their  lives.  They  have 
tasted  sweetstuffs  they  had  never  toothed 
before,  and  will  never  taste  again  in  this 


Tuesday  35 

life,  and  until  they  die  the  insurrection  of 
1916  will  have  a  sweet  savour  for  them. 

I  went  to  the  Green.  At  the  corner  of 
Merrion  Row  a  horse  was  lying  on  the 
footpath  surrounded  by  blood.  He  bore 
two  bullet  wounds,  but  the  blood  came 
from  his  throat  which  had  been  cut. 

Inside  the  Green  railings  four  bodies 
could  be  seen  lying  on  the  ground.  They 
were  dead  Volunteers. 

The  rain  was  falling  now  persistently, 
and  persistently  from  the  Green  and  from 
the  Shelbourne  Hotel  snipers  were  ex- 
changing bullets.  Some  distance  beyond 
the  Shelbourne  I  saw  another  Volunteer 
stretched  out  on  a  seat  just  within  the 
railings.  He  was  not  dead,  for,  now  and 
again,  his  hand  moved  feebly  in  a  gesture 
for  aid ;  the  hand  was  completely  red  with 
blood.  His  face  could  not  be  seen.  He 
was  just  a  limp  mass,  upon  which  the  rain 


36        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

beat  pitilessly,  and  he  was  sodden  and 
shapeless,  and  most  miserable  to  see.  His 
companions  could  not  draw  him  in  for  the 
spot  was  covered  by  the  snipers  from  the 
Shelbourne.  Bystanders  stated  that  sev- 
eral attempts  had  already  been  made  to 
rescue  him,  but  that  he  would  have  to  re- 
main there  until  the  fall  of  night. 

From  Trinity  College  windows  and  roof 
there  was  also  sniping,  but  the  Shelbourne 
Hotel  riflemen  must  have  seriously  trou- 
bled the  Volunteers  in  the  Green. 

As  I  went  back  I  stayed  a  while  in  front 
of  the  hotel  to  count  the  shots  that  had 
struck  the  windows.  There  were  fourteen 
shots  through  the  ground  windows.  The 
holes  were  clean  through,  each  surrounded 
by  a  star — the  bullets  went  through  but 
did  not  crack  the  glass.  There  were  three 
places  in  which  the  windows  had  holes 
half  a  foot  to  a  foot  wide  and  high.  Here 


Tuesday  37 

many  rifles  must  have  fired  at  the  one  mo- 
ment. It  must  have  been  as  awkward  in- 
side the  Shelbourne  Hotel  as  it  was  inside 
the  Green. 

A  lady  who  lived  in  Baggot  Street  said 
she  had  been  up  all  night,  and,  with  her 
neighbours,  had  supplied  tea  and  bread  to 
the  soldiers  who  were  lining  the  street. 
The  officer  to  whom  she  spoke  had  made 
two  or  three  attacks  to  draw  fire  and  esti- 
mate the  Volunteers'  positions,  numbers, 
&c.,  and  he  told  her  that  he  considered 
there  were  3,000  well-armed  Volunteers  in 
the  Green,  and  as  he  had  only  1,000  sol- 
diers, he  could  not  afford  to  deliver  a  real 
attack,  and  was  merely  containing  them. 

Amiens  Street  station  reported  recap- 
tured by  the  military;  other  stations  are 
said  to  be  still  in  the  Volunteers'  posses- 
sion. 

The  story  goes  that  about  twelve  o'clock 


38        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

on  Monday  an  English  officer  had  marched 
into  the  Post  Office  and  demanded  two 
penny  stamps  from  the  amazed  Volun- 
teers who  were  inside.  He  thought  their 
uniforms  were  postal  uniforms.  They 
brought  him  in,  and  he  is  probably  still 
trying  to  get  a  perspective  on  the  occur- 
rence. They  had  as  prisoners  in  the  Post 
Office  a  certain  number  of  soldiers,  and 
rumour  had  it  that  these  men  accommo- 
dated themselves  quickly  to  duress,  and 
were  busily  engaged  peeling  potatoes  for 
the  meal  which  they  would  partake  of 
later  on  with  the  Volunteers. 

Earlier  in  the  day  I  met  a  wild  indi- 
vidual who  spat  rumour  as  though  his 
mouth  were  a  machine  gun  or  a  linotype 
machine.  He  believed  everything  he 
heard;  and  everything  he  heard  became 
as  by  magic  favourable  to  his  hopes,  which 
were  violently  anti-English.  One  unfa- 


Tuesday  39 

vourable  rumour  was  instantly  crushed  by 
him  with  three  stories  which  were  L.vour- 
able  and  triumphantly  so.  He  said  the 
Germans  had  landed  in  three  places.  One 
of  these  landings  alone  consisted  of  fifteen 
thousand  men.  The  other  landings  prob- 
ably beat  that  figure.  The  whole  City  of 
Cork  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Volunteers, 
and,  to  that  extent,  might  be  said  to  be 
peaceful.  German  warships  had  defeated 
the  English,  and  their  transports  were 
speeding  from  every  side.  The  whole 
country  was  up,  and  the  garrison  was  out- 
numbered by  one  hundred  to  one.  These 
Dublin  barracks  which  had  not  been  taken 
were  now  besieged  and  on  the  point  of  sur- 
render. 

I  think  this  man  created  and  winged 
every  rumour  that  flew  in  Dublin,  and  he 
was  the  sole  individual  whom  I  heard 
definitely  taking  a  side.  He  left  me,  and, 


40        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

looking  back,  I  saw  him  pouring  his  news 
into  the  ear  of  a  gaping  stranger  whom  he 
had  arrested  for  the  purpose.  I  almost 
went  back  to  hear  would  he  tell  the  same 
tale  or  would  he  elaborate  it  into  a  new 
thing,  for  I  am  interested  in  the  art  of 
story-telling. 

At  eleven  o'clock  the  rain  ceased,  and  to 
it  succeeded  a  beautiful  night,  gusty  with 
wind,  and  packed  with  sailing  clouds  and 
stars.  iWe  were  expecting  visitors  this 
night,  but  the  sound  of  guns  may  have 
warned  most  people  away.  Three  only 
came,  and  with  them  we  listened  from  my 
window  to  the  guns  at  the  Green  challeng- 
ing and  replying  to  each  other,  and  to 
where,  further  away,  the  Trinity  snipers 
were  crackling,  and  beyond  again  to  the 
sounds  of  war  from  Sackville  Street. 
The  firing  was  fairly  heavy,  and  often  the 


Tuesday  41 

short  rattle  of  machine  guns  could  be 
heard. 

One  of  the  stories  told  was  that  the  Vol- 
unteers had  taken  the  South  Dublin  Union 
Workhouse,  occupied  it,  and  trenched  the 
grounds.  They  were  heavily  attacked  by 
the  military,  who,  at  a  loss  of  150  men, 
took  the  place.  The  tale  went  that  to- 
wards the  close  the  officer  in  command 
offered  them  terms  of  surrender,  but  the 
Volunteers  replied  that  they  were  not 
there  to  surrender.  They  were  there  to 
be  killed.  The  garrison  consisted  of  fifty 
men,  and  the  story  said  that  fifty  men 
were  killed. 


CHAPTER  III 

WEDNESDAY 

IT  was  three  o'clock  before  I  got  to  sleep 
last  night,  and  during  the  hours  machine 
guns  and  rifle  firing  had  been  continu- 
ous. 

This  morning  the  sun  is  shining  bril- 
liantly, and  the  movement  in  the  streets 
possesses  more  of  animation  than  it  has 
done.  The  movement  ends  always  in  a 
knot  of  people,  and  folk  go  from  group  to 
group  vainly  seeking  information,  and 
quite  content  if  the  rumour  they  presently 
gather  differs  even  a  little  from  the  one 
they  have  just  communicated. 

The  first  statement  I  heard  was  that  the 
Green  had  been  taken  by  the  military ;  the 

42 


Wednesday  43 

second  that  it  had  been  re-taken ;  the  third 
that  it  had  not  been  taken  at  all.  The 
facts  at  last  emerged  that  the  Green  had 
not  been  occupied  by  the  soldiers,  but  that 
the  Volunteers  had  retreated  from  it  into 
a  house  which  commanded  it.  This  was 
found  to  be  the  College  of  Surgeons,  and 
from  the  windows  and  roof  of  this  College 
they  were  sniping.  A  machine  gun  was 
mounted  on  the  roof ;  other  machine  guns, 
however,  opposed  them  from  the  roofs 
of  the  Shelbourne  Hotel,  the  United 
Service  Club,  and  the  Alexandra  Club. 
Thus  a  triangular  duel  opened  between 
these  positions  across  the  trees  of  the 
Park. 

Through  the  railings  of  the  Green  some 
rifles  and  bandoliers  could  be  seen  lying  on 
the  ground,  as  also  the  deserted  trenches 
and  snipers'  holes.  Small  boys  bolted  in 
to  see  these  sights  and  bolted  out  again 


44        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

with  bullets  quickening  their  feet.  Small 
boys  do  not  believe  that  people  will  really 
kill  them,  but  small  boys  were  killed. 

The  dead  horse  was  still  lying  stiff  and 
lamentable  on  the  footpath. 

This  morning  a  gunboat  came  up  the 
Liffey  and  helped  to  bombard  Liberty 
Hall.  The  Hall  is  breeched  and  useless. 
Rumour  says  that  it  was  empty  at  the 
time,  and  that  Connolly  with  his  men  had 
marched  long  before  to  the  Post  Office  and 
the  Green.  The  same  source  of  informa- 
tion relates  that  three  thousand  Volun- 
teers came  from  Belfast  on  an  excursion 
train  and  that  they  marched  into  the  Post 
Office. 

On  this  day  only  one  of  my  men  came  in. 
He  said  that  he  had  gone  on  the  roof  and 
had  been  shot  at,  consequently  that  the 
Volunteers  held  some  of  the  covering 
houses.  I  went  to  the  roof  and  remained 


Wednesday  45 

there  for  half  an  hour.  There  were  no 
shots,  but  the  firing  from  the  direction  of 
Sackville  Street  was  continuous  and  at 
times  exceedingly  heavy. 

To-day  the  Irish  Times  was  published. 
It  contained  a  new  military  proclamation, 
and  a  statement  that  the  country  was 
peaceful,  and  told  that  in  Sackville  Street 
some  houses  were  burned  to  the  ground. 

On  the  outside  railings  a  bill  proclaim- 
ing Martial  Law  was  posted. 

Into  the  newspaper  statement  that 
peace  reigned  in  the  country  one  was  in- 
clined to  read  more  of  disquietude  than  of 
truth,  and  one  said  is  the  country  so  ex- 
traordinarily peaceful  that  it  can  be  dis- 
missed in  three  lines.  There  is  too  much 
peace  or  too  much  reticence,  but  it  will  be 
some  time  before  we  hear  from  outside  of 
Dublin. 

Meanwhile  the  sun  was  shining.    It  was 


46        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

a  delightful  day,  and  the  streets  outside 
and  around  the  areas  of  fire  were  animated 
and  even  gay.  In  the  streets  of  Dublin 
there  were  no  morose  faces  to  be  seen. 
Almost  every  one  was  smiling  and  atten- 
tive, and  a  democratic  feeling  was  abroad, 
to  which  our  City  is  very  much  a  stranger ; 
for  while  in  private  we  are  a  sociable  and 
talkative  people  we  have  no  street  man- 
ners or  public  ease  whatever.  Every  per- 
son spoke  to  every  other  person,  and  men 
and  women  mixed  and  talked  without  con- 
straint. 

Was  the  City  for  or  against  the  Volun- 
teers ?  Was  it  for  the  Volunteers,  and  yet 
against  the  rising?  It  is  considered  now 
(writing  a  day  or  two  afterwards)  that 
Dublin  was  entirely  against  the  Volun- 
teers, but  on  the  day  of  which  I  write  no 
such  certainty  could  be  put  forward. 
There  was  a  singular  reticence  on  the  sub- 


Wednesday  47 

/ 

ject.  Men  met  and  talked  volubly,  but 
they  said  nothing  that  indicated  a  personal 
desire  or  belief.  They  asked  for  and  ex- 
changed the  latest  news,  or,  rather,  ru- 
mour, and  while  expressions  were  fre- 
quent of  astonishment  at  the  suddenness 
and  completeness  of  the  occurrence,  no 
expression  of  opinion  for  or  against  was 
anywhere  formulated. 

Sometimes  a  man  said,  "They  will  be 
beaten  of  course,"  and,  as  he  prophesied, 
the  neighbour  might  surmise  if  he  did  so 
with  a  sad  heart  or  a  merry  one,  but  they 
knew  nothing  and  asked  nothing  of  his 
views,  and  themselves  advanced  no  flag. 

This  was  among  the  men. 

The  women  were  less  guarded,  or,  per- 
haps, knew  they  had  less  to  fear.  Most  of 
the  female  opinion  I  heard  was  not  alone 
unfavourable  but  actively  and  viciously 
hostile  to  the  rising.  This  was  noticeable 


48        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

among  the  best  dressed  class  of  our  popu- 
lation; the  worst  dressed,  indeed  the  fe- 
male dregs  of  Dublin  life,  expressed  a  like 
antagonism,  and  almost  in  similar  lan- 
guage. The  view  expressed  was — 

"I  hope  every  man  of  them  will  be 
shot." 

And- 

"They  ought  to  be  all  shot." 

Shooting,  indeed,  was  proceeding  ev- 
erywhere. During  daylight,  at  least,  the 
sound  is  not  sinister  nor  depressing,  and 
the  thought  that  perhaps  a  life  had  ex- 
ploded with  that  crack  is  not  depressing 
either. 

In  the  last  two  years  of  world-war  our 
ideas  on  death  have  undergone  a  change. 
It  is  not  now  the  furtive  thing  that  crawled 
into  your  bed  and  which  you  fought  with 
pill-boxes  and  medicine  bottles.  It  has 
become  again  a  rider  of  the  wind  whom 


Wednesday  49 

you  may  go  coursing  with  through  the 
fields  and  open  places.  All  the  morbidity 
is  gone,  and  the  sickness,  and  what  re- 
mains to  Death  is  now  health  and  excite- 
ment. So  Dublin  laughed  at  the  noise  of 
its  own  bombardment,  and  made  no  moan 
about  its  dead — in  the  sunlight.  After- 
wards— in  the  rooms,  when  the  night  fell, 
and  instead  of  silence  that  mechanical 
barking  of  the  maxims  and  the  whistle  and 
screams  of  the  rifles,  the  solemn  roar  of 
the  heavier  guns,  and  the  red  glare  cover- 
ing the  sky.  It  is  possible  that  in  the 
night  Dublin  did  not  laugh,  and  that  she 
was  gay  in  the  sunlight  for  no  other  reason 
than  that  the  night  was  past. 

On  this  day  fighting  was  incessant  at 
Mount  Street  Bridge.  A  party  of  Volun- 
teers had  seized  three  houses  covering  the 
bridge  and  converted  these  into  forts.  It 
is  reported  that  military  casualties  at  this 


50        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

point  were  very  heavy.  The  Volunteers 
are  said  also  to  hold  the  South  Dublin 
Union.  The  soldiers  have  seized  Guin- 
ness's  Brewery,  while  their  opponents 
have  seized  another  brewery  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood, and  between  these  two  there  is 
a  continual  fusillade. 

Fighting  is  brisk  about  Ringsend  and 
along  the  Canal.  Dame  Street  was  said 
to  be  held  in  many  places  by  the  Volun- 
teers. I  went  down  Dame  Street,  but  saw 
no  Volunteers,  and  did  not  observe  any 
sniping  from  the  houses.  Further,  as 
Dame  Street  is  entirely  commanded  by  the 
roofs  and  windows  of  Trinity  College,  it 
is  unlikely  that  .they  should  be  here. 

It  was  curious  to  observe  this,  at  other 
times,  so  animated  street,  broad  and  de- 
serted, with  at  the  corners  of  side  streets 

4 

small  knots  of  people  watching.  Seen 
from  behind,  Grattan's  Statue  in  College 


Wednesday  51 

Green  seemed  almost  alive,  and  he  had 
the  air  of  addressing  warnings  and  re- 
proaches to  Trinity  College. 

The  Proclamation  issued  to-day  warns 
all  people  to  remain  within  doors  until  five 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  after  seven 
o'clock  at  night. 

It  is  still  early.  There  is  no  news  of 
any  kind,  and  the  rumours  begin  to  catch 
quickly  on  each  other  and  to  cancel  one  an- 
other out.  Dublin  is  entirely  cut  off  from 
England,  and  from  the  outside  world.  It 
is,  just  as  entirely  cut  off  from  the  rest  of 
Ireland ;  no  news  of  any  kind  filters  in  to 
us.  "We  are  land-locked  and  sea-locked, 
but,  as  yet,  it  does  not  much  matter. 

Meantime  the  belief  grows  that  the  Vol- 
unteers may  be  able  to  hold  out  much 
longer  than  had  been  imagined.  The  idea 
at  first  among  the  people  had  been  that  the 
insurrection  would  be  ended  the  morning 


52        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

after  it  had  begun.  But  to-day,  the  insur- 
rection having  lasted  three  days,  people 
are  ready  to  conceive  that  it  may  last  for- 
ever. There  is  almost  a  feeling  of  grati- 
tude towards  the  Volunteers  because  they 
are  holding  out  for  a  little  while,  for  had 
they  been  beaten  the  first  or  second  day  the 
City  would  have  been  humiliated  to  the 
soul. 

People  say:  "Of  course,  they  will  be 
beaten."  The  statement  is  almost  a 
query,  and  they  continue,  "but  they  are 
putting  up  a  decent  fight."  For  being 
beaten  does  not  greatly  matter  in  Ireland, 
but  not  fighting  does  matter.  i  i  They  went 
forth  always  to  the  battle ;  and  they  always 
fell."  Indeed,  the  history  of  the  Irish 
race  is  in  that  phrase. 

The  firing  from  the  roofs  of  Trinity  Col- 
lege became  violent.  I  crossed  Dame 
Street  some  distance  up,  struck  down  the 


Wednesday  53 

Quays,  and  went  along  these  until  I 
reached  the  Ballast  Office.  Further  than 
this  it  was  not  possible  to  go,  for  a  step  be- 
yond the  Ballast  Office  would  have 
brought  one  into  the  unending  stream  of 
lead  that  was  pouring  from  Trinity  and 
other  places.  I  was  looking  on  O  'Connell 
Bridge  and  Sackville  Street,  and  the  house 
facing  me  was  Kelly's — a  red-brick  fishing 
tackle  shop,  one  half  of  which  was  on  the 
Quay  and  the  other  half  in  Sackville 
Street.  This  house  was  being  bombarded. 

I  counted  the  report  of  six  different 
machine  guns  which  played  on  it.  Eifles 
innumerable  and  from  every  sort  of  place 
were  potting  its  windows,  and  at  intervals 
of  about  half  a  minute  the  shells  from  a 
heavy  gun  lobbed  in  through  its  windows 
or  thumped  mightily  against  its  walls. 

For  three  hours  that  bombardment  con- 
tinued, and  the  walls  stood  in  a  cloud  of 


54        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

red  dust  and  smoke.  Rifle  and  machine 
gun  bullets  pattered  over  every  inch  of  it, 
and,  unfailingly  the  heavy  gun  pounded  its 
shells  through  the  windows. 

One's  heart  melted  at  the  idea  that  hu- 
man beings  were  crouching  inside  that  vol- 
cano of  death,  and  I  said  to  myself,  "Not 
even  a  fly  can  be  alive  in  that  house. ' ' 

No  head  showed  at  any  window,  no  rifle 
cracked  from  window  or  roof  in  reply. 
The  house  was  dumb,  lifeless,  and  I 
thought  every  one  of  those  men  are  dead. 

It  was  then,  and  quite  suddenly,  that  the 
possibilities  of  street  fighting  flashed  on 
me,  and  I  knew  there  was  no  person  in  the 
house,  and  said  to  myself,  "They  have 
smashed  through  the  walls  with  a  hatchet 
and  are  sitting  in  the  next  house,  or  they 
have  long  ago  climbed  out  by  the  skylight 
and  are  on  a  roof  half  a  block  away." 
Then  the  thought  came  to  me — they  have 


Wednesday  55 

and  hold  the  entire  of  Sackville  Street 
down  to  the  Post  Office.  Later  on  this 
proved  to  be  the  case,  and  I  knew  at  this 
moment  that  Sackville  Street  was  doomed. 

I  continued  to  watch  the  bombardment, 
but  no  longer  with  the  anguish  which  had 
before  torn  me.  Near  by  there  were  four 
men,  and  a  few  yards  away,  clustered  in  a 
laneway,  there  were  a  dozen  others.  An 
agitated  girl  was  striding  from  the  farther 
group  to  the  one  in  which  I  was,  and  she 
addressed  the  men  in  the  most  obscene  lan- 
guage which  I  have  ever  heard.  She  ad- 
dressed them  man  by  man,  and  she  con- 
tinued to  speak  and  cry  and  scream  at 
them  with  all  that  obstinate,  angry  pa- 
tience of  which  only  a  woman  is  capable. 

She  cursed  us  all.  She  called  down  dis- 
eases on  every  human  being  in  the  world 
excepting  only  the  men  who  were  being 
bombarded.  She  demanded  of  the  folk  in 


56       The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

the  laneway  that  they  should  march  at 
least  into  the  roadway  and  prove  that  they 
were  proud  men  and  were  not  afraid  of 
bullets.  She  had  been  herself  into  the 
danger  zone.  Had  stood  herself  in  the 
track  of  the  guns,  and  had  there  cursed  her 
fill  for  half  an  hour,  and  she  desired  that 
the  men  should  do  at  least  what  she  had 
done. 

This  girl  was  quite  young — about  nine- 
teen years  of  age — and  was  dressed  in  the 
customary  shawl  and  apron  of  her  class. 
Her  face  was  rather  pretty,  or  it  had  that 
pretty  slenderness  and  softness  of  outline 
which  belong  to  youth.  But  every  sen- 
tence she  spoke  contained  half  a  dozen  in- 
decent words.  Alas,  it  was  only  that  her 
vocabulary  was  not  equal  to  her  emotions, 
and  she  did  not  know  how  to  be  emphatic 
without  being  obscene — it  is  the  cause  of 
most  of  the  meaningless  swearing  one 


Wednesday  57 

hears  every  day.  She  spoke  to  me  for  a 
minute,  and  her  eyes  were  as  soft  as  those 
of  a  kitten  and  her  language  was  as  gentle 
as  her  eyes.  She  wanted  a  match  to  light 
a  cigarette,  but  I  had  none,  and  said  that 
I  also  wanted  one.  In  a  few  minutes  she 
brought  me  a  match,  and  then  she  recom- 
menced her  tireless  weaving  of  six  vile 
words  into  hundreds  of  stupid  sentences. 

About  five  o'clock  the  guns  eased  off  of 
Kelly's. 

To  inexperienced  eyes  they  did  not  seem 
to  have  done  very  niuch  damage,  but  after- 
wards one  found  that  although  the  walls 
were  standing  and  apparently  solid  there 
was  no  inside  to  the  house.  From  roof  to 
basement  the  building  was  bare  as  a  dog 
kennel.  There  were  no  floors  inside,  .there 
was  nothing  there  but  blank  space ;  and  on 
the  ground  within  was  the  tumble  and  rub- 
bish that  had  been  roof  and  floors  and  fur- 


58        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

niture.  Everything  inside  was  smashed 
and  pulverised  into  scrap  and  dust,  and 
the  only  objects  that  had  consistency  and 
their  ancient  shape  were  the  bricks  that 
fell  when  the  shells  struck  them. 

Rifle  shots  had  begun  to  strike  the  house 
on  the  further  side  of  the  street,  a  jewel- 
lers' shop  called  Hopkins  &  Hopkins.  The 
impact  of  these  balls  on  the  bricks  was 
louder  than  the  sound  of  the  shot  which 
immediately  succeeded,  and  each  bullet 
that  struck  brought  down  a  shower  of  fine 
red  dust  from  the  walls.  Perhaps  thirty 
or  forty  shots  in  all  were  fired  at  Hopkins', 
and  then,  except  for  an  odd  crack,  firing 
ceased. 

During  all  this  time  there  had  been  no 
reply  from  the  Volunteers,  and  I  thought 
they  must  be  husbanding  their  ammuni- 
tion, and  so  must  be  short  of  it,  and  that  it 
would  be  only  a  matter  of  a  few  days  be- 


Wednesday  59 

fore  the  end.  All  this,  I  said  to  myself, 
will  be  finished  in  a  few  days,  and  they  will 
be  finished ;  life  here  will  recommence  ex- 
actly where  it  left  off,  and  except  for  some 
newly-filled  graves,  all  will  be  as  it  had 
been  until  they  become  a  tradition  and  en- 
ter the  imagination  of  their  race. 

I  spoke  to  several  of  the  people  about 
me,  and  found  the  same  willingness  to  ex- 
change news  that  I  had  found  elsewhere  in 
the  City,  and  the  same  reticences  as  re- 
garded their  private  opinions.  Two  of 
them,  indeed,  and  they  were  the  only  two 
I  met  with  during  the  insurrection,  ex- 
pressed, although  in  measured  terms,  ad- 
miration for  the  Volunteers,  and  while 
they  did  not  side  with  them  they  did  not 
say  anything  against  them.  One  was  a 
labouring  man,  the  other  a  gentleman. 
The  remark  of  the  latter  was : 

"I  am  an  Irishman,  and  (pointing  to 


60        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

the  shells  that  were  bursting  through  the 
windows  in  front  of  us)  I  hate  to  see  that 
being  done  to  other  Irishmen. ' ' 

He  had  come  from  some  part  of  the 
country  to  spend  the  Easter  Holidays  in 
Dublin,  and  was  unable  to  leave  town 
again. 

The  labouring  man — he  was  about  fifty- 
six  years  of  age — spoke  very  quietly  and 
collectedly  about  the  insurrection.  He 
was  a  type  with  whom  I  had  come  very  lit- 
tle in  contact,  and  I  was  surprised  to  find 
how  simple  and  good  his  speech  was,  and 
how  calm  his  ideas.  He  thought  labour 
was  in  this  movement  to  a  greater  extent 
than  was  imagined.  I  mentioned  that 
Liberty  Hall  had  been  blown  up,  and  that 
the  garrison  had  either  surrendered  or 
been  killed.  He  replied  that  a  gunboat 
had  that  morning  come  up  the  river  and 
had  blown  Liberty  Hall  into  smash,  but,  he 


Wednesday  61 

added,  there  were  no  men  in  it.  All  the 
Labour  Volunteers  had  marched  with  Con- 
nolly into  the  Post  Office. 

He  said  the  Labour  Volunteers  might 
possibly  number  about  one  thousand  men, 
but  that  it  would  be  quite  safe  to  say  eight 
hundred,  and  he  held  that  the  Labour  Vol- 
unteers, or  the  Citizens'  Army,  as  they 
called  themselves,  had  always  been  careful 
not  to  reveal  their  numbers.  They  had  al- 
ways announced  that  they  possessed  about 
two  hundred  and  fifty  men,  and  had  never 
paraded  any  more  than  that  number  at 
any  one  time.  Workingmen,  he  continued, 
knew  that  the  men  who  marched  were  al- 
ways different  men.  The  police  knew  it, 
too,  but  they  thought  that  the  Citizens' 
Army  was  the  most  deserted-from  force  in 
the  world. 

The  men,  however,  were  not  deserters — 
you  don't,  he  said,  desert  a  man  like  Con- 


62        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

nolly,  and  they  were  merely  taking  their 
turn  at  being  drilled  and  disciplined. 
They  were  raised  against  the  police  who, 
in  the  big  strike  of  two  years  ago,  had  acted 
towards  them  with  unparalleled  savagery, 
and  the  men  had  determined  that  the  police 
would  never  again  find  them  thus  disor- 
ganised. 

This  man  believed  that  every  member  of 
the  Citizen  Army  had  marched  with  their 
leader. 

"The  men,  I  know,"  said  he,  "would 
not  be  afraid  of  anything,  and,"  he  con- 
tinued, "they  are  in  the  Post  Office 


now.' 


"What  chance  have  they?" 

"None,"  he  replied,  "and  they  never 
said  they  had,  and  they  never  thought  they 
woud  have  any." 

"How  long  do  you  think  they'll  be  able 
to  hold  out?" 


Wednesday  63 

He  nodded  towards  the  house  that  had 
been  bombarded  by  heavy  guns. 

"That  will  root  them  out  of  it  quick 
enough,"  was  his  reply. 

"I'm  going  home,"  said  he  then,  "the 
people  will  be  wondering  if  I'm  dead  or 
alive,"  and  he  walked  away  from  that  sad 
street,  as  I  did  myself  a  few  minutes  after- 
wards. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THURSDAY 

AGAIN,  the  rumours  greeted  one.  This 
place  had  fallen  and  had  not  fallen.  Such 
a  position  had  been  captured  by  the  sol- 
diers; recaptured  by  the  Volunteers, 
and  had  not  been  attacked  at  all.  But 
certainly  fighting  was  proceeding.  Up 
Mount  Street,  the  rifle  volleys  were  con- 
tinuous, and  the  coming  and  going  of 
ambulance  cars  from  that  direction  were 
continuous  also.  Some  spoke  of  pitched 
battles  on  the  bridge,  and  said  that  as  yet 
the  advantage  lay  with  the  Volunteers. 

At  11.30  there  came  the  sound  of  heavy 
guns  firing  in  the  direction  of  Sackville 
Street.  I  went  on  the  roof,  and  remained 

64 


Thursday  65 

there  for  some  time.  From  this  height 
the  sounds  could  be  heard  plainly.  There 
was  sustained  firing  along  the  whole  cen- 
tral line  of  the  City,  from  the  Green  down 
to  Trinity  College,  and  from  thence  to 
Sackville  Street,  and  the  report  of  the 
various  types  of  arm  could  be  easily  dis- 
tinguished. There  were  rifles,  machine 
guns  and  very  heavy  cannon.  There  was 
another  sound  which  I  could  not  put  a 
name  to,  something  that  coughed  out  over 
all  the  other  sounds,  a  short,  sharp  bark,  or 
rather  a  short  noise  something  like  the 
popping  of  a  tremendous  cork. 

I  met  D.  H.  His  chief  emotion  is  one  of 
astonishment  at  the  organising  powers  dis- 
played by  the  Volunteers.  We  have  ex- 
changed rumours,  and  found  that  our 
equipment  in  this  direction  is  almost  iden- 
tical. He  says  Sheehy  Skeffington  has 
been  killed.  That  he  was  arrested  in  a 


66        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

house  wherein  arms  were  found,  and  was 
shot  out  of  hand. 

I  hope  this  is  another  rumour,  for,  so 
far  as  my  knowledge  of  him  goes,  he  was 
not  with  the  Volunteers,  and  it  is  said  that 
he  was  antagonistic  to  the  forcible  methods 
for  which  the  Volunteers  stood.  But  the 
tale  of  his  death  is  so  persistent  that  one  is 
inclined  to  believe  it. 

He  was  the  most  absurdly  courageous 
man  I  have  ever  met  with  or  heard  of.  He 
has  been  in  every  trouble  that  has  touched 
Ireland  these  ten  years  back,  and  he  has 
always  been  in  on  the  generous  side,  there- 
fore, and  naturally,  on  the  side  that  was 
unpopular  and  weak.  It  would  seem  in- 
deed that  a  cause  had  only  to  be  weak  to 
gain  his  sympathy,  and  his  sympathy  never 
stayed  at  home.  There  are  so  many  good 
people  who  " sympathise"  with  this  or  that 
cause,  and,  having  given  that  measure  of 


Thursday  67 

their  emotion,  they  give  no  more  of  it  or 
of  anything  else.  But  he  rushed  instantly 
to  the  street.  A  large  stone,  the  lift  of  a 
footpath,  the  base  of  a  statue,  any  place 
and  every  place  was  for  him  a  pulpit ;  and, 
in  the  teeth  of  whatever  oppression  or  dis- 
aster or  power,  he  said  his  say. 

There  are  multitudes  of  men  in  Dublin 
of  all  classes  and  creeds  who  can  boast  that 
they  kicked  Sheehy  Skeffington,  or  that 
they  struck  him  on  the  head  with  walking 
sticks  and  umbrellas,  or  that  they  smashed 
their  fists  into  his  face,  and  jumped  on  him 
when  he  fell.  It  is  by  no  means  an  exag- 
geration to  say  that  these  things  were  done 
to  him,  and  it  is  true  that  he  bore  ill-will  to 
no  man,  and  that  he  accepted  blows,  and 
indignities  and  ridicule  with  the  pathetic 
candour  of  a  child  who  is  disguised  as  a 
man,  and  whose  disguise  cannot  come  off. 
His  tongue,  his  pen,  his  body,  all  that  he 


68        The  Insurrection  in  Diiblin 

had  and  hoped  for  were  at  the  immediate 
service  of  whoever  was  bewildered  or  op- 
pressed. He  has  been  shot.  Other  men 
have  been  shot,  but  they  faced  the  guns 
knowing  that  they  faced  justice,  however 
stern  and  oppressive ;  and  that  what  they 
had  engaged  to  confront  was  before  them. 
He  had  no  such  thought  to  soothe  from  his 
mind  anger  or  unforgiveness.  He  who 
was  a  pacifist  was  compelled  to  revolt  to 
his  last  breath,  and  on  the  instruments  of 
his  end  he  must  have  looked  as  on  murder- 
ers. I  am  sure  that  to  the  end  he  railed 
against  oppression,  and  that  he  fell  mar- 
velling that  the  world  can  truly  be  as  it  is. 
With  his  death  there  passed  away  a  brave 
man  and  a  clean  soul. 

Later  on  this  day  I  met  Mrs.  Sheehy 
Skeffington  in  the  street.  She  confirmed 
the  rumour  that  her  husband  had  been  ar- 
rested on  the  previous  day,  but  further 


Thursday  69 

than  that  she  had  no  news.  So  far  as  I 
know  the  sole  crime  of  which  her  husband 
had  been  guilty  was  that  he  called  for  a 
meeting  of  the  citizens  to  enrol  special 
constables  and  prevent  looting. 

Among  the  rumours  it  was  stated  with 
every  accent  of  certitude  that  Madame 
Markieivcz  had  been  captured  in  George's 
Street,  and  taken  to  the  Castle.  It  was 
also  current  that  Sir  Koger  Casement  had 
been  captured  at  sea  and  had  already  been 
shot  in  the  Tower  of  London.  The  names 
of  several  Volunteer  Leaders  are  men- 
tioned as  being  dead.  But  the  surmise 
that  steals  timidly  from  one  mouth  flies 
boldly  as  a  certitude  from  every  mouth 
that  repeats  it,  and  truth  itself  would  now 
be  listened  to  with  only  a  gossip's  ear, 
but  no  person  would  believe  a  word  of  it. 

This  night  also  was  calm  and  beautiful, 
but  this  night  was  the  most  sinister  and 


70        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

woful  of  those  that  have  passed.  The 
sound  of  artillery,  of  rifles,  machine  guns, 
grenades,  did  not  cease  even  for  a  mo- 
ment. From  my  window  I  saw  a  red  flare 
that  crept  to  the  sky,  and  stole  over  it  and 
remained  there  glaring ;  the  smoke  reached 
from  the  ground  to  the  clouds,  and  I  could 
see  great  red  sparks  go  soaring  to  enor- 
mous heights;  while  always,  in  the  calm 
air,  hour  after  hour  there  was  the  buzzing 
and  rattling  and  thudding  of  guns,  and, 
but  for  the  guns,  silence. 

It  is  in  a  dead  silence  this  Insurrection 
is  being  fought,  and  one  imagines  what 
must  be  the  feeling  of  these  men,  young 
for  the  most  part,  and  unused  to  violence, 
who  are  submitting  silently  to  the  crash 
and  flame  and  explosion  by  which  they  are 
surrounded. 


CHAPTER  V 

FRIDAY 

THIS  morning  there  are  no  newspapers, 
no  bread,  no  milk,  no  news.  The  sun  is 
shining,  and  the  streets  are  lively  but  dis- 
creet. All  people  continue  to  talk  to  one 
another  without  distinction  of  class,  but 
nobody  knows  what  any  person  thinks. 
It  is  a  little  singular  the  number  of 
people  who  are  smiling.  I  fancy  they 
were  listening  to  the  guns  last  night,  and 
they  are  smiling  this  morning  because  the 
darkness  is  past,  and  because  the  sun  is 
shining,  and  because  they  can  move  their 
limbs  in  space,  and  may  talk  without  hav- 
ing to  sink  their  voices  to  a  whisper. 
Guns  do  not  sound  so  bad  in  the  day  as 

71 


72        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

they  do  at  night,  and  no  person  can  feel 
lonely  while  the  sun  shines. 

The  men  are  smiling,  but  the  women 
laugh,  and  their  laughter  does  not  dis- 
please, for  whatever  women  do  in  what- 
ever circumstances  appears  to  have  a 
lightness  of  its  own.  It  seems  right  that 
they  should  scream  when  danger  to  them- 
selves is  imminent,  and  it  seems  right  that 
they  should  laugh  when  the  danger  only 
threatens  others. 

It  is  rumoured  this  morning  that  Sack- 
ville  Street  has  been  burned  out  and  lev- 
elled to  the  ground.  It  is  said  that  the 
end  is  in  sight ;  and,  it  is  said,  that  matters 
are,  if  anything  rather  worse  than  better. 
That  the  Volunteers  have  sallied  from 
some  of  their  strongholds  and  entrenched 
themselves,  and  that  in  one  place  alone 
(the  South  Lotts)  they  have  seven  ma- 
chine guns.  That  when  the  houses  which 


Friday  73 

they  held  became  untenable  they  rushed 
out  and  seized  other  houses,  and  that,  pur- 
suing these  tactics,  there  seemed  no  reason 
to  believe  that  the  Insurrection  would  ever 
come  to  an  end.  That  the  streets  are 
filled  with  Volunteers  in  plain  clothes,  but 
having  revolvers  in  their  pockets.  That 
the  streets  are  filled  with  soldiers  equally 
revolvered  and  plain  clothed,  and  that  the 
least  one  says  on  any  subject  the  less  one 
would  have  to  answer  for. 

The  feeling  that  I  tapped  was  definitely 
Anti- Volunteer,  but  the  number  of  people 
who  would  speak  was  few,  and  one  re- 
garded the  noncommittal  folk  who  were  so 
smiling  and  polite,  and  so  prepared  to 
talk,  with  much  curiosity,  seeking  to  read 
in  their  eyes,  in  their  bearing,  even  in  the 
cut  of  their  clothes  what  might  be  the 
secret  movements  and  cogitations  of  their 
minds. 


74        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

I  received  the  impression  that  numbers 
of  them  did  not  care  a  rap  what  way  it 
went;  and  that  others  had  ceased  to  be 
mental  creatures  and  were  merely  ma- 
chines for  registering  the  sensations  of 
the  time. 

None  of  these  people  were  prepared  for 
Insurrection.  The  thing  had  been  sprung 
on  them  so  suddenly  that  they  were  un- 
able to  take  sides,  and  their  feeling  of  de- 
tachment was  still  so  complete  that  they 
would  have  betted  on  the  business  as  if  it 
had  been  a  horse  race  or  a  dog  fight. 

Many  English  troops  have  been  landed 
each  night,  and  it  is  believed  that  there 
are  more  than  sixty  thousand  soldiers  in 
Dublin  alone,  and  that  they  are  supplied 
with  every  offensive  contrivance  which 
military  art  has  invented. 

Merrion  Square  is  strongly  held  by  the 
soldiers.  They  are  posted  along  both 


Friday  75 

sides  of  the  road  at  intervals  of  about 
twenty  paces,  and  their  guns  are  continu- 
ally barking  up  at  the  roofs  which  sur- 
round them  in  the  great  square.  It  is 
said  that  these  roofs  are  held  by  the  Volun- 
teers from  Mount  Street  Bridge  to  the 
Square,  and  that  they  hold  in  like  manner 
wide  stretches  of  the  City. 

They  appear  to  have  mapped  out  the 
roofs  with  all  the  thoroughness  that  had 
hitherto  been  expended  on  the  roads,  and 
upon  these  roofs  they  are  so  mobile  and 
crafty  and  so  much  at  home  that  the  work 
of  the  soldiers  will  be  exceedingly  difficult 
as  well  as  dangerous. 

Still,  and  notwithstanding,  men  can  only 
take  to  the  roofs  for  a  short  time.  Up 
there,  there  can  be  no  means  of  transport, 
and  their  ammunition,  as  well  as  their 
food,  will  very  soon  be  used  up.  It  is  the 
beginning  of  the  end,  and  the  fact  that 


76        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

they  have  to  take  to  the  roofs,  even  though 
that  be  in  their  programme,  means  that 
they  are  finished. 

From  the  roof  there  comes  the  sound  of 
machine  guns.  Looking  towards  Sack- 
ville  Street  one  picks  out  easily  Nelson's 
Pillar,  which  towers  slenderly  over  all  the 
buildings  of  the  neighbourhood.  It  is 
wreathed  in  smoke.  Another  towering 
building  was  the  D.B.C.  Cafe.  Its  Chi- 
nese-like pagoda  was  a  landmark  easily 
to  be  found,  but  to-day  I  could  not  find  it. 
It  was  not  there,  and  I  knew  that,  even  if 
all  Sackville  Street  was  not  burned  down, 
as  rumour  insisted,  this  great  Cafe  had 
certainly  been  curtailed  by  its  roof  and 
might,  perhaps,  have  been  completely 
burned. 

On  the  gravel  paths  I  found  pieces  of 
charred  and  burnt  paper.  These  scraps 
must  have  been  blown  remarkably  high  to 


Friday  77 

have  crossed  all  the  roofs  that  lie  between 
Sackville  Street  and  Merrion  Square. 

At  eleven  o'clock  there  is  continuous  fir- 
ing, and  snipers  firing  from  the  direction 
of  Mount  Street,  and  in  every  direction 
of  the  City  these  sounds  are  being  dupli- 
cated. 

In  Camden  Street  the  sniping  and  cas- 
ualties are  said  to  have  been  very  heavy. 
One  man  saw  two  Volunteers  taken  from  a 
house  by  the  soldiers.  They  were  placed 
kneeling  in  the  centre  of  the  road,  and 
within  one  minute  of  their  capture  they 
were  dead.  Simultaneously  there  fell 
several  of  the  firing  party. 

An  officer  in  this  part  had  his  brains 
blown  into  the  roadway.  A  young  girl 
ran  into  the  road  picked  up  his  cap  and 
scraped  the  brains  into  it.  She  covered 
this  poor  debris  with  a  little  straw,  and 
carried  the  hat  piously  to  the  nearest  hos- 


78        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

pital  in  order  that  the  brains  might  be 
buried  with  their  owner. 

The  continuation  of  her  story  was  less 
gloomy  although  it  affected  the  teller 
equally. 

" There  is  not,"  said  she,  "a  cat  or  a 
dog  left  alive  in  Camden  Street.  They 
are  lying  stiff  out  in  the  road  and  up  on 
the  roofs.  There's  lots  of  women  will  be 
sorry  for  this  war,"  said  she,  "and  their 
pets  killed  on  them." 

In  many  parts  of  the  City  hunger  began 
to  be  troublesome.  A  girl  told  me  that  her 
family,  and  another  that  had  taken  refuge 
with  them,  had  eaten  nothing  for  three 
days.  On  this  day  her  father  managed 
to  get  two  loaves  of  bread  somewhere,  and 
he  brought  these  home. 

"When,"  said  the  girl,  "my  father  came 
in  with  the  bread  the  whole  fourteen  of 
us  ran  at  him,  and  in  a  minute  we  were 


Friday  79 

all  ashamed  for  the  loaves  were  gone  to 
the  last  crumb,  and  we  were  all  as  hun- 
gry as  we  had  been  before  he  came  in. 
The  poor  man,"  said  she,  "did  not  even 
get  a  bit  for  himself."  She  held  that 
the  poor  people  were  against  the  Volun- 
teers. 

The  Volunteers  still  hold  Jacob's  Bis- 
cuit Factory.  It  is  rumoured  that  a 
priest  visited  them  and  counselled  surren- 
der, and  they  replied  that  they  did  not  go 
there  to  surrender  but  to  be  killed.  They 
asked  him  to  give  them  absolution,  and  the 
story  continues  that  he  refused  to  do  so — 
but  this  is  not  (in  its  latter  part)  a  story 
that  can  easily  be  credited.  The  Adelaide 
Hospital  is  close  to  this  factory,  and  it 
is  possible  that  the  proximity  of  the  hos- 
pital, delays  or  hinders  military  operations 
against  the  factory. 

Rifle  volleys  are  continuous  about  Mer- 


80        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

rion  Square,  and  prolonged  machine  gun 
firing  can  be  heard  also. 

During  the  night  the  firing  was  heavy 
from  almost  every  direction;  and  in  the 
direction  of  Sackville  Street  a  red  glare 
told  again  of  fire. 

It  is  hard  to  get  to  bed  these  nights.  It 
is  hard  even  to  sit  down,  for  the  moment 
one  does  sit  down  one  stands  immediately 
up  again  resuming  that  ridiculous  ship's 
march  from  the  window  to  the  wall  and 
back.  I  am  foot  weary  as  I  have  never 
been  before  in  my  life,  but  I  cannot  say 
that  I  am  excited.  No  person  in  Dublin 
is  excited,  but  there  exists  a  state  of  ten- 
sion and  expectancy  which  is  mentally 
more  exasperating  than  any  excitement 
could  be.  The  absence  of  news  is  largely 
responsible  for  this.  We  do  not  know 
what  has  happened,  what  is  happening,  or 
what  is  going  to  happen,  and  the  reversion 


Friday  81 

to  barbarism  (for  barbarism  is  largely  a 
lack  of  news)  disturbs  us. 

Each  night  we  have  got  to  bed  at  last 
murmuring,  "I  wonder  will  it  be  all  over 
to-morrow,"  and  this  night  the  like  ques- 
tion accompanied  us. 


CHAPTER  VI 

SATURDAY 

THIS  morning  also  there  has  been  no 
bread,  no  milk,  no  meat,  no  newspapers, 
but  the  sun  is  shining.  It  is  astonishing 
that,  thus  early  in  the  Spring,  the  weather 
should  be  so  beautiful. 

It  is  stated  freely  that  the  Post  Office 
has  been  taken,  and  just  as  freely  it  is 
averred  that  it  has  not  been  taken.  The 
approaches  to  Merrion  Square  are  held  by 
the  military,  and  I  was  not  permitted  to 
go  to  my  office.  As  I  came  to  this  point 
shots  were  fired  at  a  motor  car  which  had 
not  stopped  on  being  challenged.  By- 
standers said  it  was  Sir  Horace  Plunkett's 
car,  and  that  he  had  been  shot.  Later  we 

82 


Saturday  83 

found  that  Sir  Horace  was  not  hurt,  but 
that  his  nephew  who  drove  the  car  had 
been  severely  wounded. 

At  this  hour  the  rumour  of  the  fall  of 
Verdun  was  persistent.  Later  on  it  was 
denied,  as  was  denied  the  companion 
rumour  of  the  relief  of  Kut.  Saw  K.  who 
had  spent  three  days  and  the  whole  of  his 
money  in  getting  home  from  County  Clare. 
He  had  heard  that  Mrs.  Sheehy  Skeffing- 
ton's  house  was  raided,  and  that  two  dead 
bodies  had  been  taken  out  of  it.  Saw 
Miss  P.  who  seemed  sad.  I  do  not  know 
what  her  politics  are,  but  I  think  that  the 
word  " kindness"  might  be  used  to  cover 
all  her  activities.  She  has  a  heart  of  gold, 
and  the  courage  of  many  lions.  I  then 
met  Mr.  Commissioner  Bailey  who  said 
the  Volunteers  had  sent  a  deputation,  and 
that  terms  of  surrender  were  being  dis- 
cussed. I  hope  this  is  true,  and  I  hope 


84        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

mercy  will  be  shown  to  the  men.  Nobody 
believes  there  will  be  any  mercy  shown, 
and  it  is  freely  reported  that  they  are  shot 
in  the  street,  or  are  taken  to  the  nearest 
barracks  and  shot  there.  The  belief 
grows  that  no  person  who  is  now  in  the 
Insurrection  will  be  alive  when  the  Insur- 
rection is  ended. 

That  is  as  it  will  be.  But  these  days 
the  thought  of  death  does  not  strike  on  the 
mind  with  any  severity,  and,  should  the 
European  war  continue  much  longer,  the 
fear  of  death  will  entirely  depart  from 
man,  as  it  has  departed  many  times  in  his- 
tory. With  that  great  deterrent  gone  our 
rulers  will  be  gravely  at  a  loss  in  dealing 
with  strikers  and  other  such  discontented 
people.  Possibly  they  will  have  to  resur- 
rect the  long-buried  idea  of  to*rture. 

The  people  in  the  streets  are  laughing 
and  chatting.  Indeed,  there  is  gaiety  in 


• 

Saturday  85 

the  air  as  well  as  sunshine,  and  no  person 
seems  to  care  that  men  are  being  shot 
every  other  minute,  or  bayonetted,  or 
blown  into  scraps  or  burned  into  cinders. 
These  things  are  happening,  nevertheless, 
but  much  of  their  importance  has  van- 
ished. 

I  met  a  man  at  the  Green  who  was  draw- 
ing a  plan  on  the  back  of  an  envelope. 
The  problem  was  how  his  questioner  was 
to  get  from  where  he  was  standing  to  a 
street  lying  at  the  other  side  of  the  river, 
and  the  plan  as  drawn  insisted  that  to 
cover  this  quarter  of  an  hour's  distance 
he  must  set  out  on  a  pilgrimage  of  more 
than  twenty  miles.  Another  young  boy 
was  standing  near  embracing  a  large  ham. 
He  had  been  trying  for  three  days  to  con- 
vey his  ham  to  a  house  near  the  Gresham 
Hotel  where  his  sister  lived.  He  had  al- 
most given  up  hope,  .and  he  hearkened  in- 


86        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

telligently  to  the  idea  that  he  should  him- 
self eat  the  ham  and  so  get  rid  of  it. 

The  rifle  fire  was  persistent  all  day,  but, 
saving  'in  certain  localities,  it  was  not 
heavy.  Occasionally  the  machine  guns 
rapped  in.  There  was  no  sound  of  heavy 
artillery. 

The  rumour  grows  that  the  Post  Office 
has  been  evacuated,  and  that  the  Volun- 
teers are  at  large  and  spreading  every- 
where across  the  roofs.  The  rumour 
grows  also  that  terms  of  surrender  are 
being  discussed,  and  that  Sackville  Street 
has  been  levelled  to  the  ground. 

At  half-past  seven  in  the  evening  calm 
is  almost  complete.  The  sound  of  a  rifle 
shot  being  only  heard  at  long  intervals. 

I  got  to  bed  this  night  earlier  than  usual. 
At  two  o'clock  I  left  the  window  from 
which  a  red  flare  is  yet  visible  in  the  direc- 
tion of  Sackville  Street.  The  morning 


Saturday  87 

will  tell  if  the  Insurrection  is  finished  or 
not,  but  at  this  hour  all  is  not  over.  Shots 
are  ringing  all  around  and  down  my  street, 
and  the  vicious  crackling  of  these  rifles 
grow  at  times  into  regular  volleys. 


CHAPTER  VII 

SUNDAY 

THE  Insurrection  has  not  ceased. 

There  is  much  rifle  fire,  but  no  sound 
from  the  machine  guns  or  the  eighteen 
pounders  and  trench  mortars. 

From  the  window  of  my  kitchen  the  flag 
of  the  Republic  can  be  seen  flying  afar. 
This  is  the  flag  that  flies  over  Jacob's  Bis- 
cuit Factory,  and  I  will  know  that  the  In- 
surrection has  ended  as  soon  as  I  see  this 
flag  pulled  down. 

When  I  went  out  there  were  few  people 
in  the  streets.  I  met  D.  H.,  and,  together, 
we  passed  up  the  Green.  The  Republi- 
can flag  was  still  flying  over  the  College 
of  Surgeons.  We  tried  to  get  down  Graf- 

88 


Sunday  89 

ton  Street  (where  broken  windows  and 
two  gaping  interiors  told  of  the  recent 
visit  of  looters),  but  a  little  down  this 
street  we  were  waved  back  by  armed  sen- 
tries. We  then  cut  away  by  the  Gaiety 
Theatre  into  Mercer's  Street,  where  im- 
mense lines  of  poor  people  were  drawn  up 
waiting  for  the  opening  of  the  local  bak- 
ery. We  got  into  George's  Street,  think- 
ing to  turn  down  Dame  Street  and  get 
from  thence  near  enough  to  Sackville 
Street  to  see  if  the  rumours  about  its  de- 
struction were  true,  but  here  also  we  were 
halted  by  the  military,  and  had  to  retrace 
our  steps. 

There  was  no  news  of  any  kind  to  be 
gathered  from  the  people  we  talked  to, 
nor  had  they  even  any  rumours. 

This  was  the  first  day  I  had  been  able 
to  get  even  a  short  distance  outside  of  my 
own  quarter,  and  it  seemed  that  the  people 


90        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

of  my  quarter  were  more  able  in  the  manu- 
facture of  news  or  more  imaginative  than 
were  the  people  who  live  in  other  parts  of 
the  city.  We  had  no  sooner  struck  into 
home  parts  than  we  found  news.  We 
were  told  that  two  of  the  Volunteer  lead- 
ers had  been  shot.  These  were  Pearse  and 
Connolly.  The  latter  was  reported  as  ly- 
ing in  the  Castle  Hospital  with  a  fractured 
thigh.  Pearse  was  cited  as  dead  with  two 
hundred  of  his  men,  following  their  sally 
from  the  Post  Office.  The  machine  guns 
had  caught  them  as  they  left,  and  none  of 
them  remained  alive.  The  news  seemed 
afterwards  to  be  true  except  that  instead 
of  Pearse  it  was  The  O'Rahilly  who  had 
been  killed.  Pearse  died  later  and  with 
less  excitement. 

A  man  who  had  seen  an  English  news- 
paper said  that  the  Kut  force  had  surren- 
dered to  the  Turk,  but  that  Verdun  had 


Sunday  91 

not  fallen  to  the  Germans.  The  rumour 
was  current  also  that  a  great  naval  battle 
had  been  fought  whereat  the  German  fleet 
had  been  totally  destroyed  with  loss  to  the 
English  of  eighteen  warships.  It  was 
said  that  among  the  captured  Volunteers 
there  had  been  a  large  body  of  Germans, 
but  nobody  believed  it;  and  this  rumour 
was  inevitably  followed  by  the  tale  that 
there  were  one  hundred  German  subma- 
rines lying  in  the  Stephen's  Green  pond. 
At  half-past  two  I  met  Mr.  Commis- 
sioner Bailey,  who  told  me  that  it  was  all 
over,  and  that  the  Volunteers  were  sur- 
rendering everywhere  in  the  city.  A 
motor  car  with  two  military  officers,  and 
two  Volunteer  leaders  had  driven  to  the 
College  of  Surgeons  and  been  admitted. 
After  a  short  interval  Madame  Marckie- 
vicz  marched  out  of  the  College  at  the 
head  of  about  100  men,  and  they  had  given 


92        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

up  their  arms ;  the  motor  car  with  the  Vol- 
unteer leaders  was  driving  to  other  strong- 
holds, and  it  was  expected  that  before 
nightfall  the  capitulations  would  be  com- 
plete. 

I  started  home,  and  on  the  way  I  met  a 
man  whom  I  had  encountered  some  days 
previously,  and  from  whom  rumours  had 
sprung  as  though  he  wove  them  from  his 
entrails,  as  a  spider  weaves  his  web.  He 
was  no  less  provided  on  this  ^occasion,  and 
it  was  curious  to  listen  to  his  tale  of  Eng- 
lish defeats  on  every  front.  He  an- 
nounced the  invasion  of  England  in  six 
different  quarters,  the  total  destruction 
of  the  English  fleet,  and  the  landing  of  im- 
mense German  armies  on  the  West  coast 
of  Ireland.  He  made  these  things  up  in 
his  head.  Then  he  repeated  them  to  him- 
self in  a  loud  voice,  and  became  somehow 


Sunday  93 

persuaded  that  they  had  been  told  to  him 
by  a  well-informed  stranger,  and  then  he 
believed  them  and  told  them  to  everybody 
he  met.  Amongst  other  things  Spain  had 
declared  war  on  our  behalf,  the  Chilian 
Navy  was  hastening  to  our  relief.  For  a 
pin  he  would  have  sent  France  flying  west- 
ward all  forgetful  of  her  own  war.  A 
singular  man  truly,  and  as  I  do  think  the 
only  thoroughly  happy  person  in  our  city. 
It  is  half-past  three  o'clock,  and  from 
my  window  the  Republican  flag  can  still 
be  seen  flying  over  Jacob's  factory. 
There  is  occasional  shooting,  but  the  city 
as  a  whole  is  quiet.  At  a  quarter  to  five 
o'clock  a  heavy  gun  boomed  once.  Ten 
minutes  later  there  was  heavy  machine 
gun  firing  and  much  rifle  shooting.  In 
another  ten  minutes  the  flag  at  Jacob's 
was  hauled  down. 


94        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

During  the  remainder  of  the  night  snip- 
ing and  military  replies  were  incessant, 
particularly  in  my  street. 

The  raids  have  begun  in  private  houses. 
Count  Plunkett's  house  was  entered  by 
the  military  who  remained  there  for  a  very 
long  time.  Passing  home  about  two  min- 
utes after  Proclamation  hour  I  was  pur- 
sued for  the  whole  of  Fitzwilliam  Square 
by  bullets.  They  buzzed  into  the  roadway 
beside  me,  and  the  sound  as  they  whistled 
near  was  curious.  The  sound  is  some- 
thing like  that  made  by  a  very  swift  saw, 
and  one  gets  the  impression  that  as  well 
as  being  very  swift  they  are  very  heavy. 

Snipers  are  undoubtedly  on  the  roofs 
opposite  my  house,  and  they  are  not  asleep 
on  these  roofs.  Possibly  it  is  difficult  to 
communicate  with  these  isolated  bands 
the  news  of  their  companions'  surrender, 
but  it  is  likely  they  will  learn,  by  the 


Sunday  95 

diminution  of  fire  in  other  quarters  that 
their  work  is  over. 

In  the  morning  on  looking  from  my  win- 
day  I  saw  four  policemen  marching  into 
the  street.  They  were  the  first  I  had  seen 
for  a  week.  Soon  now  the  military  tale 
will  finish,  the  police  story  will  commence, 
the  political  story  will  recommence,  and, 
perhaps,  the  weeks  that  follow  this  one 
will  sow  the  seed  of  more  hatred  than  so 
many  centuries  will  be  able  to  uproot 
again,  for  although  Irish  people  do  not 
greatly  fear  the  military  they  fear  the 
police,  and  they  have  very  good  reason  to 
do  so. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  INSURRECTION  IS  OVER! 

THE  Insurrection  is  over,  and  it  is  worth 
asking  what  has  happened,  how  it  has  hap- 
pened, and  why  it  happened? 

The  first  question  is  easily  answered. 
The  finest  part  of  our  city  has  been  blown 
to  smithereens,  and  burned  into  ashes. 
Soldiers  amongst  us  who  have  served 
abroad  say  that  the  ruin  of  this  quarter  is 
more  complete  than  anything  they  have 
seen  at  Ypres,  than  anything  they  have 
seen  anywhere  in  France  or  Flanders.  A 
great  number  of  our  men  and  women  and 
children,  Volunteers  and  civilians  con- 
founded alike,  are  dead,  and  some  fifty 

96 


The  Insurrection  is  Over!         97 

thousand  men  who  have  been  moved  with 
military  equipment  to  our  land  are  now 
being  removed  therefrom.  The  English 
nation  has  been  disorganised  no  more  than 
as  they  were  affected  by  the  transport  of 
these  men  and  material.  That  is  what 
happened,  and  it  is  all  that  happened. 

How  it  happened  is  another  matter,  and 
one  which,  perhaps,  will  not  be  made  clear 
for  years.  All  we  know  in  Dublin  is  that 
our  city  burst  into  a  kind  of  spontaneous 
war;  that  we  lived  through  it  during  one 
singular  week,  and  that  it  faded  away  and 
disappeared  almost  as  swiftly  as  it  had 
come.  The  men  who  knew  about  it  are, 
with  two  exceptions,  dead,  and  these  two 
exceptions  are  in  gaol,  and  likely  to  remain 
there  long  enough.  (Since  writing  one  of 
these  men  has  been- shot.) 

Why  it  happened  is  a  question  that  may 
be  answered  more  particularly.  It  hap- 


98        The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

pened  because  the  leader  of  the  Irish 
Party  misrepresented  his  people  in  the 
English  House  of  Parliament.  On  the 
day  of  the  declaration  of  war  between 
England  and  Germany  he  took  the  Irish 
case,  weighty  with  eight  centuries  of  his- 
tory and  tradition,  and  he  threw  it  out  of 
the  window.  He  pledged  Ireland  to  a  par- 
ticular course  of  action,  and  he  had  no 
authority  to  give  this  pledge  and  he  had 
no  guarantee  that  it  would  be  met.  The 
ramshackle  intelligence  of  his  party  and 
his  own  emotional  nature  betrayed  him 
and  us  and  England.  He  swore  Ireland 
to  loyalty  as  if  he  had  Ireland  in  his 
pocket,  and  could  answer  for  her.  Ire- 
land has  never  been  disloyal  to  England, 
not  even  at  this  epoch,  because  she  has 
never  been  loyal  to  England,  and  the  pro- 
fession of  her  National  faith  has  been  un- 
wavering, has  been  known  to  every  Eng- 


The  Insurrection  is  Over!         99 

lish  person  alive,  and  has  been  clamant  to 
all  the  world  beside. 

Is  it  that  he  wanted  to  be  cheered  I  He 
could  very  easily  have  stated  Ireland's 
case  truthfully,  and  have  proclaimed  a 
benevolent  neutrality  (if  he  cared  to  use 
the  grandiloquent  words)  on  the  part  of 
this  country.  He  would  have  gotten  his 
cheers,  he  would  in  a  few  months  have  got- 
ten Home  Rule  in  return  for  Irish  sol- 
diers. He  would  have  received  politically 
whatever  England  could  have  safely  given 
him.  But,  alas,  these  carefulnesses  did 
not  chime  with  his  emotional  moment. 
They  were  not  magnificent  enough  for  one 
who  felt  that  he  was  talking  not  to  Ireland 
or  to  England,  but  to  the  whole  gaping  and 
eager  earth,  and  so  he  pledged  his  coun- 
try's credit  so  deeply  that  he  did  not  leave 
her  even  one  National  rag  to  cover  herself 
with. 


100      The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

After  a  lie  truth  bursts  out,  and  it  is  no 
longer  the  radiant  and  serene  goddess  we 
knew  or  hoped  for — it  is  a  disease,  it  is  a 
moral  syphilis  and  will  ravage  until  the 
body  in  which  it  can  dwell  has  been 
purged.  Mr.  Redmond  told  the  lie  and  he 
is  answerable  to  England  for  the  violence 
she  had  to  be  guilty  of,  and  to  Ireland  for 
the  desolation  to  which  we  have  had  to 
submit.  Without  his  lie  there  had  been 
no  Insurrection ;  without  it  there  had  been 
at  this  moment,  and  for  a  year  past,  an 
end  to  the  "Irish  question."  Ireland 
must  in  ages  gone  have  been  guilty  of 
abominable  crimes  or  she  could  not  at  this 
juncture  have  been  afflicted  with  a  John 
Redmond. 

He  is  the  immediate  cause  of  this  our 
latest  Insurrection — the  word  is  big,  much 
too  big  for  the  deed,  and  we  should  call  it 
row,  or  riot,  or  squabble,  in  order  to  draw 


The  Insurrection  is  Over!       101 

the  fact  down  to  its  dimensions,  but  the  ul- 
timate blame  for  the  trouble  between  the 
two  countries  does  not  fall  against  Ire- 
land. 

The  fault  lies  with  England,  and  in 
these  days  while  an  effort  is  being  made 
(interrupted,  it  is  true,  by  cannon)  to 
found  a  better  understanding  between  the 
two  nations  it  is  well  that  England  should 
recognise  what  she  has  done  to  Ireland, 
and  should  try  at  least  to  atone  for  it. 
The  situation  can  be  explained  almost  in 
a  phrase.  We  are  a  little  country  and 
you,  a  huge  country,  have  persistently 
beaten  us.  We  are  a  poor  country  and 
you,  the  richest  country  in  the  world,  have 
persistently  robbed  us.  That  is  the  his- 
torical fact,  and  whatever  national  or  po- 
litical necessities  are  opposed  in  reply,  it 
is  true  that  you  have  never  given  Ireland 
any  reason  to  love  you,  and  you  cannot 


102      The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

claim  her  affection  without  hypocrisy  or 
stupidity. 

You  think  our  people  can  only  be  tena- 
cious in  hate — it  is  a  lie.  Our  historical 
memory  is  truely  tenacious,  but  during  the 
long  and  miserable  tale  of  our  relations 
you  have  never  given  us  one  generosity  to 
remember  you  by,  and  you  must  not  claim 
our  affection  or  our  devotion  until  you  are 
worthy  of  them.  We  are  a  good  people; 
almost  we  are  the  only  Christian  people 
left  in  the  world,  nor  has  any  nation  shown 
such  forbearance  towards  their  persecutor 
as  we  have  always  shown  to  you.  No  na- 
tion has  forgiven  its  enemies  as  we  have 
forgiven  you,  time  after  time  down  the 
miserable  generations,  the  continuity  of 
our  forgiveness  only  equalled  by  the  con- 
tinuity of  your  ill-treatment.  Between 
our  two  countries  you  have  kept  and  pro- 
tected a  screen  of  traders  and  politicians 


The  Insurrection  is  Over!       103 

who  are  just  as  truly  your  enemies  as  they 
are  ours.  In  the  end  they  will  do  most 
harm  to  you  for  we  are  by  this  vaccinated 
against  misery  but  you  are  not,  and  the 
" loyalists"  who  sell  their  own  country  for 
a  shilling  will  sell  another  country  for  a 
penny  when  the  opportunity  comes  and 
safety  with  it. 

Meanwhile  do  not  always  hasten  your 
presents  to  us  out  of  a  gun.  You  have 
done  it  so  often  that  your  guns  begin  to 
bore  us,  and  you  have  now  an  opportunity 
which  may  never  occur  again  to  make  us 
your  friends.  There  is  no  bitterness  in 
Ireland  against  you  on  account  of  this  war, 
and  the  lack  of  ill-feeling  amongst  us  is 
entirely  due  to  the  more  than  admirable 
behaviour  of  the  soldiers  whom  you  sent 
over  here.  A  peace  that  will  last  for  ever 
can  be  made  with  Ireland  if  you  wish  to 
make  it,  but  you  must  take  her  hand  at 


104      The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

once,  for  in  a  few  months'  time  she  will 
not  open  it  to  you;  the  old,  bad  relations 
will  re-commence,  the  rancour  will  be  born 
and  grow,  and  another  memory  will  be 
stored  away  in  Ireland's  capacious  and  re- 
tentive brain. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  VOLUNTEERS 

THERE  is  much  talk  of  the  extraordinary 
organising  powers  displayed  in  the  insur- 
rection, but  in  truth  there  was  nothing  ex- 
traordinary in  it.  The  real  essence  and 
singularity  of  the  rising  exists  in  its  sim- 
plicity, and,  saving  for  the  courage  which 
carried  it  out,  the  word  extraordinary  is 
misplaced  in  this  context. 

The  tactics  of  the  Volunteers  as  they  be- 
gan to  emerge  were  reduced  to  the  very 
skeleton  of  "  strategy. "  It  was  only  that 
they  seized  certain  central  and  strategical 
districts,  garrisoned  those  and  held  them 
until  they  were  put  out  of  them.  Once  in 
their  forts  there  was  no  further  egress  by 

105 


106      The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

the  doors,  and  for  purpose  of  entry  and 
sortie  they  used  the  sky-lights  and  the 
roofs.  On  the  roofs  they  had  plenty  of 
cover,  and  this  cover  conferred  on  them  a 
mobility  which  was  their  chief  asset,  and 
which  alone  enabled  them  to  protract  the 
rebellion  beyond  the  first  day. 

This  was  the  entire  of  their  home  plan, 
and  there  is  no  doubt  that  they  had  studied 
Dublin  roofs  and  means  of  inter-communi- 
cation by  roofs  with  the  closest  care. 
Further  than  that  I  do  not  think  they  had 
organised  anything.  But  this  was  only 
the  primary  plan,  and,  unless  they  were 
entirely  mad,  there  must  have  been  a 
sequel  to  it  which  did  not  materialise,  and 
which  would  have  materialised  but  that 
the  English  Fleet  blocked  the  way. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  they  expected  the 
country  to  rise  with  them,  and  they  must 
have  known  what  their  own  numbers  were, 


The  Volunteers  107 

and  what  chance  they  had  of  making  a  pro- 
tracted resistance.  The  word  "resist- 
ance" is  the  keyword  of  the  rising,  and 
the  plan  of  holding  out  must  have  been 
rounded  off  with  a  date.  At  that  date 
something  else  was  to  have  happened 
which  would  relieve  them. 

There  is  not  much  else  that  could  hap- 
pen except  the  landing  of  German  troops 
in  Ireland  or  in  England.  It  would  have 
been,  I  think,  immaterial  to  them  where 
these  were  landed,  but  the  reasoning  seems 
to  point  to  the  fact  that  they  expected 
and  had  arranged  for  such  a  landing,  al- 
though on  this  point  there  is  as  yet  no  evi- 
dence. 

The  logic  of  this  is  so  simple,  so  plausi- 
ble, that  it  might  be  accepted  without 
further  examination,  and  yet  further  ex- 
amination is  necessary,  for  in  a  country 
like  Ireland  logic  and  plausibility  are  more 


108      The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

often  wrong  than  right.  It  may  just  as 
easily  be  that  except  for  furnishing  some 
arms  and  ammunition  Germany  was  not 
in  the  rising  at  all,  and  this  I  prefer  to 
believe.  It  had  been  current  long  before 
the  rising  that  the  Volunteers  knew  they 
could  not  seriously  embarrass  England, 
and  that  their  sole  aim  was  to  make  such  a 
row  in  Ireland  that  the  Irish  question 
would  take  the  status  of  an  international 
one,  and  on  the  discussion  of  terms  of 
peace  in  the  European  war  the  claims  of 
Ireland  would  have  to  be  considered  by 
the  whole  Council  of  Europe  and  the 
world. 

That  is,  in  my  opinion,  the  metaphysic 
behind  the  rising.  It  is  quite  likely  that 
they  hoped  for  German  aid,  possibly  some 
thousands  of  men,  who  would  enable  them 
to  prolong  the  row,  but  I  do  not  believe 
they  expected  German  armies,  nor  do  I 


The  Volunteers  109 

think  they  would  have  welcomed  these  with 
any  cordiality. 

In  this  insurrection  there  are  two  things 
which  are  singular  in  the  history  of  Irish 
risings.  One  is  that  there  were  no  in- 
formers, or  there  were  no  informers  among 
the  chiefs.  I  did  hear  people  say  in  the 
streets  that  two  days  before  the  rising  they 
knew  it  was  to  come ;  they  invariably  added 
that  they  had  not  believed  the  news,  and 
had  laughed  at  it.  A  priest  said  the  same 
thing  in  my  hearing,  and  it  may  be  that 
the  rumour  was  widely  spread,  and  that 
everybody,  including  the  authorities, 
looked  upon  it  as  a  joke. 

The  other  singularity  of  the  rising  is  the 
amazing  silence  in  which  it  was  fought. 
Nothing  spoke  but  the  guns ;  and  the  Vol- 
unteers on  the  one  side  and  the  soldiers  on 
the  other  potted  each  other  and  died  in 
whispers ;  it  might  have  been  said  that  both 


110      The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

sides  feared  the  Germans  would  hear  them 
and  take  advantage  of  their  preoccupa- 
tion. 

There  is  a  third  reason  given  for  the  re- 
bellion, and  it  also  is  divorced  from  foreign 
plots.  It  is  said,  and  the  belief  in  Dublin 
was  widespread,  that  the  Government  in- 
tended to  raid  the  Volunteers  and  seize 
their  arms.  One  remembers  to-day  the 
paper  which  Alderman  Kelly  read  to  the 
Dublin  Corporation,  and  which  purported 
to  be  State  Instructions  that  the  Military 
and  Police  should  raid  the  Volunteers,  and 
seize  their  arms  and  leaders.  The  Volun- 
teers had  sworn  they  would  not  permit 
their  arms  to  be  taken  from  them.  A  list 
of  the  places  to  be  raided  was  given,  and 
the  news  created  something  of  a  sensation 
in  Ireland  when  it  was  published  that  eve- 
ning. The  Press,  by  instruction  appar- 
ently, repudiated  this  document,  but  the 


The  Volunteers  111 

Volunteers,  with  most  of  the  public,  be- 
lieved it  to  be  true,  and  it  is  more  than 
likely  that  the  rebellion  took  place  in  order 
to  forestall  the  Government. 

This  is  also  an  explanation  of  the  rebel- 
lion, and  is  just  as  good  a  one  as  any  other. 
It  is  the  explanation  which  I  believe  to  be 
the  true  one. 

All  the  talk  of  German  invasion  and  the 
landing  of  German  troops  in  Ireland  is  so 
much  nonsense  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
England  is  master  of  the  seas,  and  that 
from  a  week  before  the  war  down  to  this 
date  she  has  been  the  undisputed  monarch 
of  those  ridges.  During  this  war  there 
will  be  no  landing  of  troops  in  either  Eng- 
land or  Ireland  unless  Germany  in  the 
meantime  can  solve  the  problem  of  sub- 
marine transport.  It  is  a  problem  which 
will  be  solved  some  day,  for  every  problem 
can  be  solved,  but  it  will  hardly  be  during 


112      The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

the  progress  of  this  war.  The  men  at  the 
head  of  the  Volunteers  were  not  geniuses, 
neither  were  they  fools,  and  the  difficulty 
of  acquiring  military  aid  from  Germany 
must  have  seemed  as  insurmountable  to 
them  as  it  does  to  the  Germans  themselves. 
They  rose  because  they  felt  that  they  had 
to  do  so,  or  be  driven  like  sheep  into  the 
nearest  police  barracks,  and  be  laughed  at 
by  the  whole  of  Ireland  as  cowards  and 
braggarts. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  why,  on 
the  eve  of  the  insurrection,  Professor  Mac- 
Neill  resigned  the  presidency  of  the  Volun- 
teers. The  story  of  treachery  which  was 
heard  in  the  streets  is  not  the  true  one,  for 
men  of  his  type  are  not  traitors,  and  this 
statement  may  be  dismissed  without  fur- 
ther comment  or  notice.  One  is  left  to 
imagine  what  can  have  happened  during 
the  conference  which  is  said  to  have  pre- 


The  Volunteers  113 

ceded  the  rising,  and  which  ended  with  the 
resignation  of  Professor  MacNeill. 

This  is  my  view,  or  my  imagining,  of 
what  occurred.  The  conference  was 
called  because  the  various  leaders  felt  that 
a  hostile  movement  was  projected  by  the 
Government,  and  that  the  times  were  ex- 
ceedingly black  for  them.  Neither  Mr. 
Birrell  nor  Sir  Mathew  Nathan  had  any 
desire  that  there  should  be  a  conflict  in 
Ireland  during  the  war.  This  cannot  be 
doubted.  From  such  a  conflict  there 
might  follow  all  kinds  of  political  reper- 
cussions; but  although  the  Government 
favoured  the  policy  of  laissez  faire,  there 
was  a  powerful  military  and  political 
party  in  Ireland  whose  whole  effort  was 
towards  the  disarming  and  punishment  of 
the  Volunteers — particularly  I  should  say 
the  punishment  of  the  Volunteers.  I  be- 
lieve, or  rather  I  imagine,  that  Professor 


114      The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

MacNeill  was  approached  at  the  instance 
of  Mr.  Birrell  or  Sir  Mathew  Nathan  and 
assured  that  the  Government  did  not  medi- 
tate any  move  against  his  men,  and  that 
so  long  as  his  Volunteers  remained  quiet 
they  would  not  be  molested  by  the  authori- 
ties. I  would  say  that  Professor  Mac- 
Neill  gave  and  accepted  the  necessary  as- 
surances, and  that  when  he  informed  his 
conference  of  what  had  occurred,  and 
found  that  they  did  not  believe  faith  would 
be  kept  with  them,  he  resigned  in  the  de- 
spairing hope  that  his  action  might  turn 
them  from  a  purpose  which  he  considered 
lunatic,  or,  at  least,  by  restraining  a  num- 
ber of  his  followers  from  rising,  he  might 
limit  the  tale  of  men  who  would  be  use- 
lessly killed. 

He  was  not  alone  in  his  vote  against  a 
rising.  The  O'Rahilly  and  some  others 
are  reputed  to  have  voted  with  him,  but 


The  Volunteers  115 

when  insurrection  was  decided  on,  The 
O'Rahilly  marched  with  his  men,  and 
surely  a  gallant  man  could  not  have  done 
otherwise. 

When  the  story  of  what  occurred  is  au- 
thoritatively written  (it  may  be  written) 
I  think  that  this  will  be  found  to  be  the 
truth  of  the  matter,  and  that  German  in- 
trigue and  German  money  counted  for  so 
little  in  the  insurrection  as  to  be  negligible. 


CHAPTER  X 

SOME  OF  THE  LEADERS 

MEANWHILE  the  Insurrection,  like  all  its 
historical  forerunners,  has  been  quelled  in 
blood.  It  sounds  rhetorical  to  say  so,  but 
it  was  not  quelled  in  peasoup  or  tisane. 
While  it  lasted  the  fighting  was  very  de- 
termined, and  it  is  easily,  I  think,  the  most 
considerable  of  Irish  rebellions. 

The  country  was  not  with  it,  for  be  it  re- 
membered that  a  whole  army  of  Irishmen, 
possibly  three  hundred  thousand  of  our 
race,  are  fighting  with  England  instead  of 
against  her.  In  Dublin  alone  there  is 
scarcely  a  poor  home  in  which  a  father,  a 
brother,  or  a  son  is  not  serving  in  one  of 
the  many  fronts  which  England  is  defend- 
ing. Had  the  country  risen,  and  fought  as 

116 


Some  of  the  Leaders  117 

stubbornly  as  the  Volunteers  did,  no 
troops  could  have  beaten  them — well  that 
is  a  wild  statement,  the  heavy  guns  could 
always  beat  them — but  from  whatever 
angle  Irish  people  consider  this  affair  it 
must  appear  to  them  tragic  and  lamenta- 
ble beyond  expression,  but  not  mean  and 
not  unheroic. 

It  was  hard  enough  that  our  men  in  the 
English  armies  should  be  slain  for  causes 
which  no  amount  of  explanation  will  ever 
render  less  foreign  to  us,  or  even  intelligi- 
ble ;  but  that  our  men  who  were  left  should 
be  killed  in  Ireland  fighting  against  the 
same  England  that  their  brothers  are  fight- 
ing for  ties  the  question  into  such  knots  of 
contradiction  as  we  may  give  up  trying  to 
unravel.  We  can  only  think — this  has 
happened — and  let  it  unhappen  itself  as 
best  it  may. 

We  say  that  the  time  always  finds  the 


118      The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

man,  and  by  it  we  mean :  that  when  a  re- 
sponsibility is  toward  there  will  be  found 
some  shoulder  to  bend  for  the  yoke  which 
all  others  shrink  from.  It  is  not  always 
nor  often  the  great  ones  of  the  earth  who 
undertake  these  burdens — it  is  usually  the 
good  folk,  that  gentle  hierarchy  who  swear 
allegiance  to  mournfulness  and  the  under 
dog,  as  others  dedicate  themselves  to  mut- 
ton chops  and  the  easy  nymph.  It  is  not 
my  intention  to  idealise  any  of  the  men 
who  were  concerned  in  this  rebellion. 
Their  country  will,  some  few  years  hence, 
do  that  as  adequately  as  she  has  done  it  for 
those  who  went  before  them. 

Those  of  the  leaders  whom  I  knew  were 
not  great  men,  nor  brilliant — that  is  they 
were  more  scholars  than  thinkers,  and 
more  thinkers  than  men  of  action ;  and  I 
believe  that  in  no  capacity  could  they  have 


Some  of  the  Leaders  119 

attained  to  what  is  called  eminence,  nor  do 
I  consider  they  coveted  any  such  public 
distinction  as  is  noted  in  that  word. 

But  in  my  definition  they  were  good  men 
— men,  that  is,  who  willed  no  evil,  and 
whose  movements  of  body  or  brain  were 
unselfish  and  healthy.  No  person  living 
is  the  worse  off.  for  having  known  Thomas 
MacDonagh,  and  I,  at  least,  have  never 
heard  MacDonagh  speak  unkindly  or  even 
harshly  of  anything  that  lived.  It  has 
been  said  of  him  that  his  lyrics  were  epi- 
cal ;  in  a  measure  it  is  true  and  it  is  true  in 
the  same  measure  that  his  death  was  epi- 
cal. He  was  the  first  of  the  leaders  who 
was  tried  and  shot.  It  was  not  easy  for 
him  to  die  leaving  behind  two  young  chil- 
dren and  a  young  wife,  and  the  thought 
that  his  last  moment  must  have  been  tor- 
mented by  their  memory  is  very  painful. 


120      The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

We  are  all  fatalists  when  we  strike  against 
power,  and  I  hope  he  put  care  from  him 
as  the  soldiers  marched  him  out. 

The  O'Eahilly  also  I  knew,  but  not  inti- 
mately, and  I  can  only  speak  of  a  good 
humour,  a  courtesy,  and  an  energy  that 
never  failed.  He  was  a  man  of  unceasing 
ideas  and  unceasing  speech,  and  laughter 
accompanied  every  sound  made  by  his  lips. 

Plunkett  and  Pearse  I  knew  also,  but 
not  intimately.  Young  Plunkett,  as  he 
was  always  called,  would  never  strike  one 
as  a  militant  person.  He,  like  Pearse  and 
MacDonagh,  wrote  verse,  and  it  was  no 
better  nor  worse  than  their 's  were.  He 
had  an  appetite  for  quaint  and  difficult 
knowledge.  He  studied  Egyptian  and 
Sanscrit,  and  distant  curious  matter  of 
that  sort,  and  was  interested  in  inventions 
and  the  theatre.  He  was  tried  and  sen- 
tenced and  shot. 


Some  of  the  Leaders  121 

As  to  Pearse,  I  do  not  know  how  to  place 
him,  nor  what  to  say  of  him.  If  there  was 
an  idealist  among  the  men  concerned  in 
this  insurrection  it  was  he,  and  if  there 
was  any  person  in  the  world  less  fitted  to 
head  an  insurrection  it  was  he  also.  I 
never  could  "touch"  or  sense  in  him  the 
qualities  which  other  men  spoke  of,  and 
which  made  him  military  commandant  of 
the  rising.  None  of  these  men  were  mag- 
netic in  the  sense  that  Mr.  Larkin  is  mag- 
netic, and  I  would  have  said  that  Pearse 
was  less  magnetic  than  any  of  the  others. 
Yet  it  was  to  him  and  around  him  they 
clung. 

Men  must  find  some  centre  either  of 
power  or  action  or  intellect  about  which 
they  may  group  themselves,  and  I  think 
that  Pearse  became  the  leader  because  his 
temperament  was  more  profoundly  emo- 
tional than  any  of  the  others.  He  was 


122      The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

emotional  not  in  a  flighty,  but  in  a  serious 
way,  and  one  felt  more  that  he  suffered 
than  that  he  enjoyed. 

He  had  a  power ;  men  who  came  into  in- 
timate contact  with  him  began  to  act  dif- 
ferently to  their  own  desires  and  interests. 
His  schoolmasters  did  not  always  receive 
their  salaries  with  regularity.  The  reason 
that  he  did  not  pay  them  was  the  simple 
one  that  he  had  no  money.  Given  by  an- 
other man  this  explanation  would  be  un- 
economic, but  from  him  it  was  so  logical 
that  even  a  child  could  comprehend  it. 
These  masters  did  not  always  leave  him. 
They  remained,  marvelling  perhaps,  and 
accepting,  even  with  stupefaction,  the  the- 
ory that  children  must  be  taught,  but  that 
no  such  urgency  is  due  towards  the  pay- 
ment of  wages.  One  of  his  boys  said  there 
was  no  fun  in  telling  lies  to  Mr.  Pearse, 
for,  however  outrageous  the  lie,  he  always 


Some  of  the  Leaders  123 

believed  it.  He  built  and  renovated  and 
improved  his  school  because  the  results 
were  good  for  his  scholars,  and  somehow 
he  found  builders  to  undertake  these  for- 
lorn hopes. 

It  was  not,  I  think,  that  he  "put  his 
trust  in  God,"  but  that  when  something 
had  to  be  done  he  did  it,  and  entirely  dis- 
regarded logic  or  economics  or  force.  He 
said — such  a  thing  has  to  be  done  and  so 
far  as  one  man  can  do  it  I  will  do  it,  and 
he  bowed  straightaway  to  the  task. 

It  is  mournful  to  think  of  men  like  these 
having  to  take  charge  of  bloody  and  deso- 
late work,  and  one  can  imagine  them  say, 
"Oh!  cursed  spite,"  as  they  accepted  re- 
sponsibility. 


CHAPTEE  XI 

LABOUR  AND  THE  INSURRECTION 

No  person  in  Ireland  seems  to  have  exact 
information  about  the  Volunteers,  their 
aims,  or  their  numbers.  We  know  the 
names  of  the  leaders  now.  They  were  re- 
cited to  us  with  the  tale  of  their  execution ; 
and  with  the  declaration  of  a  Republic  we 
learned  something  of  their  aim,  but  the 
estimate  of  their  number  runs  through  the 
figures  ten,  thirty,  and  fifty  thousand. 
The  first  figure  is  undoubtedly  too  slender, 
the  last  excessive,  and  something  between 
fifteen  and  twenty  thousand  for  all  Ire- 
land would  be  a  reasonable  guess. 

Of  these,  the  Citizen  Army  or  Labour 
side  of  the  Volunteers,  would  not  number 
more  than  one  thousand  men,  and  it  is 

124 


Labour  and  the  Insurrection    125 

with  difficulty  such  a  figure  could  be  ar- 
rived at.  Yet  it  is  freely  argued,  and  the 
theory  will  grow,  that  the  causes  of  this 
latest  insurrection  should  be  sought  among 
the  labour  problems  of  Dublin  rather  than 
in  any  national  or  patriotic  sentiment,  and 
this  theory  is  buttressed  by  all  the*  agile 
facts  which  such  a  theory  would  be  fur- 
nished with. 

It  is  an  interesting  view,  but  in  my  opin- 
ion it  is  an  erroneous  one. 

That  Dublin  labour  was  in  the  Volun- 
teer movement  to  the  strength  of,  perhaps, 
two  hundred  men,  may  be  true — it  is  pos- 
sible there  were  more,  but  it  is  unlikely 
that  a  greater  number,  or,  as  many,  of  the 
Citizen  Army  marched  when  the  order 
came.  The  overwhelming  bulk  of  Volun- 
teers were  actuated  by  the  patriotic  ideal 
which  is  the  heritage  and  the  burden  of 
almost  every  Irishman  born  out  of  the 


126      The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

Unionist  circle,  and  their  connection  with 
labour  was  much  more  manual  than 
mental. 

This  view  of  the  importance  of  labour  to 
the  Volunteers  is  held  by  two  distinct  and 
opposed  classes. 

Just  as  there  are  some  who  find  the  ex- 
planation of  life  in  a  sexual  formula,  so 
there  is  a  class  to  whom  the  economic  idea 
is  very  dear,  and  beneath  every  human  ac- 
tivity they  will  discover  the  shock  of  wages 
and  profit.  It  is  truly  there,  but  it  pulls 
no  more  than  its  weight,  and  in  Irish  life 
the  part  played  by  labour  has  not  yet  been 
a  weighty  one,  although  on  every  yiew  it 
is  an  important  one.  The  labour  idea  in 
Ireland  has  not  arrived.  It  is  in  process 
of  "becoming,"  and  when  labour  problems 
are  mentioned  in  this  country  a  party  does 
not  come  to  mind,  but  two  men  only — they 
are  Mr.  Larkin  and  James  Connolly,  and 


Labour  and  the  Insurrection     127 

they  are  each  in  their  way  exceptional  and 
curious  men. 

There  is  another  class  who  implicate 
labour,  and  they  do  so  because  it  enables 
them  to  urge  that  as  well  as  being  grasping 
and  nihilistic,  Irish  labour  is  disloyal  and 
treacherous. 

The  truth  is  that  labour  in  Ireland  has 
not  yet  succeeded  in  organising  anything 
— not  even  discontent.  It  is  not  self-con- 
scious to  any  extent,  and,  outside  of  Dub- 
lin, it  scarcely  appears  to  exist.  The  na- 
tional imagination  is  not  free  to  deal  with 
any  other  subject  than  that  of  freedom, 
and  part  of  the  policy  of  our  " masters'7  is 
to  see  that  we  be  kept  busy  with  politics 
instead  of  social  ideas.  From  their  stand- 
point the  policy  is  admirable,  and  up  to 
the  present  it  has  thoroughly  succeeded. 

One  does  not  hear  from  the  lips  of  the 
Irish  workingman,  even  in  Dublin,  any  of 


128      Tlie  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

the  affirmations  and  rejections  which  have 
long  since  become  the  commonplaces  of 
his  comrades  in  other  lands.  But  on  the 
subject  of  Irish  freedom  his  views  are  in- 
stantly forthcoming,  and  his  desires  are 
explicit,  and,  to  a  degree,  informed. 
This  latter  subject  they  understand  and 
have  fabricated  an  entire  language  to  ex- 
press it,  but  the  other  they  do  not  under- 
stand nor  cherish,  and  they  are  not  pre- 
pared to  die  for  it. 

It  is  possibly  true  that  before  any  move- 
ment can  attain  to  really  national  propor- 
tions there  must  be,  as  well  as  the  intellec- 
tual ideal  which  gives  it  utterance  and  a 
frame,  a  sense  of  economic  misfortune  to 
give  it  weight,  and  when  these  fuse  the 
combination  may  well  be  irresistible.  The 
organised  labour  discontent  in  Ireland,  in 
Dublin,  was  not  considerable  enough  to 
impose  its  aims  or  its  colours  on  the  Vol- 


Labour  and  the  Insurrection     129 

unteers,  and  it  is  the  labour  ideal  which 
merges  and  disappears  in  the  national  one. 
The  reputation  of  all  the  leaders  of  the  in- 
surrection, not  excepting  Connolly,  is  that 
they  were  intensely  patriotic  Irishmen, 
and  also,  but  this  time  with  the  exception 
of  Connolly,  that  they  were  not  particu- 
larly interested  in  the  problems  of  labour. 

The  great  strike  of  two  years  ago  re- 
mained undoubtedly  as  a  bitter  and  last- 
ing memory  with  Dublin  labour — perhaps, 
even,  it  was  not  so  much  a  memory  as  a 
hatred.  Still,  it  was  not  hatred  of  Eng- 
land which  was  evoked  at  that  time,  nor 
can  the  stress  of  their  conflict  be  traced  to 
an  English  source.  It  was  hatred  of  local 
traders,  and,  particularly,  hatred  of  the 
local  police,  and  the  local  powers  and 
tribunals,  which  were  arrayed  against 
them. 

One  can  without  trouble  discover  rea- 


130      The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

sons  why  they  should  go  on  strike  again, 
but  by  no  reasoning  can  I  understand  why 
they  should  go  into  rebellion  against  Eng- 
land, unless  it  was  that  they  were  patriots 
first  and  trade  unionists  a  very  long  way 
afterwards. 

I  do  not  believe  that  this  combination  of 
the  ideal  and  the  practical  was  consum- 
mated in  the  Dublin  insurrection,  but  I  do 
believe  that  the  first  step  towards  the 
formation  of  such  a  party  has  now  been 
taken,  and  that  if,  years  hence,  there 
should  be  further  trouble  in  Ireland  such 
trouble  will  not  be  so  easily  dealt  with  as 
this  one  has  been. 

It  may  be  that  further  trouble  will  not 
arise,  for  the  co-operative  movement, 
which  is  growing  slowly  but  steadily  in 
Ireland,  may  arrange  our  economic  ques- 
tion, and,  incidentally,  our  national  ques- 
tion also — that  is  if  the  English  people  do 


Labour  and  the  Insurrection     131 

not  decide  that  the  latter  ought  to  be  set- 
tled at  once. 

James  Connolly  had  his  heart  in  both 
the  national  and  the  economic  camp,  but  he 
was  a  great-hearted  man,  and  could  afford 
to  extend  his  affections  where  others  could 
only  dissipate  them. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  his  powers 
of  orderly  thinking  were  of  great  service 
to  the  Volunteers,  for  while  Mr.  Larkin 
was  the  magnetic  centre  of  the  Irish 
labour  movement,  Connolly  was  its  brains. 
He  has  been  sentenced  to  death  for  his 
part  in  the  insurrection,  and  for  two  days 
now  he  has  been  dead. 

He  had  been  severely  wounded  in  the 
fighting,  and  was  tended,  one  does  not 
doubt  with  great  care,  until  he  regained 
enough  strength  to  stand  up  and  be  shot 
down  again. 

Others  are  dead  also.    I  was  not  ac- 


132      The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

quainted  with  them,  and  with  Connolly  I 
was  not  more  than  acquainted.  I  had  met 
him  twice  many  months  ago,  but  other  peo- 
ple were  present  each  time,  and  he  scarcely 
uttered  a  word  on  either  of  these  occasions. 
I  was  told  that  he  was  by  nature  silent. 
He  was  a  man  who  can  be  ill-spared  in  Ire- 
land, but  labour,  throughout  the  world, 
may  mourn  for  him  also. 

A  doctor  who  attended  on  him  during 
his  last  hours  says  that  Connolly  received 
the  sentence  of  his  death  quietly.  He  was 
to  be  shot  on  the  morning  following  the 
sentence.  This  gentleman  said  to  him  : 

"Connolly,  when  you  stand  up  to  be 
shot,  will  you  say  a  prayer  for  me?" 

Connolly  replied: 

"I  will." 

His  visitor  continued : 

"Will  you  say  a  prayer  for  the  men  who 
are  shooting  you?" 


Labour  and  tlie  Insurrection     133 

"I  will,"  said  Connolly,  "and  I  will  say 
a  prayer  for  every  good  man  in  the  world 
who  is  doing  his  duty." 

He  was  a  steadfast  man  in  all  that  he 
undertook.  We  may  be  sure  he  stead- 
fastly kept  that  promise.  He  would  pray 
for  others,  who  had  not  time  to  pray  for 
himself,  as  he  had  worked  for  others  dur- 
ing the  years  when  he  might  have  worked 
for  himself. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  IKISH  QUESTIONS 

THERE  is  truly  an  Irish  question.  There 
are  two  Irish  questions,  and  the  most  im- 
portant of  them  is  not  that  which  appears 
in  our  newspapers  and  in  our  political 
propaganda. 

The  first  is  international,  and  can  be 
stated  shortly.  It  is  the  desire  of  Ireland 
to  assume  control  of  her  national  life. 
With  this  desire  the  English  people  have 
professed  to  be  in  accord,  and  it  is  at  any 
rate  so  thoroughly  understood  that  noth- 
ing further  need  be  made  of  it  in  these 
pages. 

The  other  Irish  question  is  different, 
and  less  simply  described.  The  difficulty 

134 


The  Irish  Questions  135 

about  it  is  that  it  cannot  be  approached 
until  the  question  of  Ireland's  freedom 
has  by  some  means  been  settled,  for  this 
ideal  of  freedom  has  captured  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  race.  It  rides  Ireland  like  a 
nightmare,  thwarting  or  preventing  all 
civilising  or  cultural  work  in  this  coun- 
try, and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  Ire- 
land cannot  even  begin  to  live  until  that 
obsession  and  fever  has  come  to  an  end, 
and  her  imagination  has  been  set  free  to 
do  the  work  which  imagination  alone  can 
do — Imagination  is  intelligent  kindness — 
we  have  sore  need  of  it. 

The  second  question  might  plausibly  be 
called  a  religious  one.  It  has  been  so 
called,  and,  for  it  is  less  troublesome  to  ac- 
cept an  idea  than  to  question  it,  the  state- 
ment has  been  accepted  as  truth — but  it 
is  untrue,  and  it  is  deeply  and  villainously 
untrue.  No  lie  in  Irish  life  has  been  so 


136      The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

persistent  and  so  mischievous  as  this  one, 
and  no  political  lie  has  ever  been  so  in- 
geniously, and  malevolent!}7  exploited. 

There  is  no  religious  intolerance  in  Ire- 
land except  that  which  is  political.  I  am 
not  a  member  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and 
am  not  inclined  to  be  the  advocate  of  a  re- 
ligious system  which  my  mentality  dis- 
likes, but  I  have  never  found  real  intoler- 
ance among  my  fellow-countrymen  of  that 
religion.  I  have  found  it  among  Protest- 
ants. I  will  limit  that  statement,  too.  I 
have  found  it  among  some  Protestants. 
But  outside  of  the  North  of  Ireland  there 
is  no  religious  question,  and  in  the  North 
it  is  fundamentally  more  political  than  re- 
ligious. 

All  thinking  is  a  fining  down  of  one's 
ideas,  and  thus  far  we  have  come  to  the 
statement  of  Ireland's  second  question. 
It  is  not  Catholic  or  Nationalist,  nor  have 


The  Irish  Questions  137 

I  said  that  it  is  entirely  Protestant  and 
Unionist,  but  it  is  on  the  extreme  wing  of 
this  latter  party  that  responsibility  must 
be  laid.  It  is  difficult,  even  for  an  Irish- 
man living  in  Ireland,  to  come  on  the  real 
political  fact  which  underlies  Irish  Prot- 
estant politics,  and  which  fact  has  con- 
sistently opposed  and  baffled  every  at- 
tempt made  by  either  England  or  Ireland 
to  come  to  terms.  There  is  such  a  fact, 
and  clustered  around  it  is  a  body  of  men 
whose  hatred  of  their  country  is  persistent 
and  deadly  and  unexplained. 

One  may  make  broad  generalisations  on 
the  apparent  situation  and  endeavour  to 
solve  it  by  those.  We  may  say  that 
loyalty  to  England  is  the  true  centre  of 
their  action.  I  will  believe  it,  but  only 
to  a  point.  Loyalty  to  England  does  not 
inevitably  include  this  active  hatred,  this 
blindness,  this  withering  of  all  sympathy 


138      The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

for  the  people  among  whom  one  is  born, 
and  among  whom  one  has  lived  in  peace, 
for  they  have  lived  in  peace  amongst  us. 
We  may  say  that  it  is  due  to  the  idea  of 
privilege  and  the  desire  for  power. 
Again,  I  will  accept  it  up  to  a  point — but 
these  are  cultural  obsessions,  and  they 
cease  to  act  when  the  breaking-point  is 
reached. 

I  know  of  only  two  mental  states  which 
are  utterly  without  bowels  or  conscience. 
These  are  cowardice  and  greed.  Is  it  to  a 
synthesis  of  these  states  that  this  more 
than  mortal  enmity  may  be  traced? 
What  do  they  fear,  and  what  is  it  they 
covet?  What  can  they  redoubt  in  a  coun- 
try which  is  practically  crimeless,  or  covet 
in  a  land  that  is  almost  as  bare  as  a  mutton 
bone  ?  They  have  mesmerised  themselves, 
these  men,  and  have  imagined  into  our 
quiet  air  brigands  and  thugs  and  titans, 


The  Irish  Questions  139 

with  all  the  other  notabilities  of  a  tale  for 
children. 

I  do  not  think  that  this  either  will  tell 
the  tale,  but  I  do  think  there  is  a  story  to 
be  told — I  imagine  an  esoteric  wing  to  the 
Unionist  Party.  I  imagine  that  Party  in- 
cludes a  secret  organisation — they  may  be 
Orangemen,  they  may  be  Masons,  and,  if 
there  be  such,  I  would  dearly  like  to  know 
what  the  metaphysic  of  their  position  is, 
and  how  they  square  it  with  any  idea  of 
humanity  or  social  life.  Meantime,  all 
this  is  surmise,  and  I,  as  a  novelist,  have  a 
notoriously  flighty  imagination,  and  am 
content  to  leave  it  at  that. 

But  this  secondary  Irish  question  is  not 
so  terrible  as  it  appears.  It  is  terrible 
now,  it  would  not  be  terrible  if  Ireland 
had  national  independence. 

The  great  protection  against  a  lie  is — 
not  to  believe  it;  and  Ireland,  in  this  in- 


140      The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

stance,  has  that  protection.  The  claims 
made  by  the  Unionist  Wing  do  not  rely 
solely  on  the  religious  base.  They  use  all 
the  arguments.  It  is,  according  to  them, 
unsafe  to  live  in  Ireland.  (Let  us  leave 
this  insurrection  of  a  week  out  of  the  ques- 
tion.) Life  is  not  safe  in  Ireland.  Prop- 
erty shivers  in  terror  of  daily  or  nightly 
appropriation.  Other,  undefined,  but 
even  more  woeful  glooms  and  creeps,  wrig- 
gle stealthily  abroad. 

These  things  are  not  regarded  in  Ire- 
land, and,  in  truth,  they  are  not  meat  for 
Irish  consumption.  Irish  judges  are  pre- 
sented with  white  gloves  with  a  regularity 
which  may  even  be  annoying  to  them,  and 
were  it  not  for  political  trouble  they  would 
be  unable  to  look  their  salaries  in  the  face. 
The  Irish  Bar  almost  weep  in  chorus  at  the 
words  "Land  Act,"  and  stare,  not  dumbly, 
on  destitution.  These  tales  are  meant  for 


The  Irish  Questions  141 

England  and  are  sent  there.  They  will 
cease  to  be  exported  when  there  is  no  mar- 
ket for  them,  and  these  men  will  perhaps 
end  by  becoming  patriotic  and  social  when 
they  learn  that  they  do  not  really  com- 
mand the  Big  Battalions.  But  Ireland 
has  no  protection  against  them  while  Eng- 
land can  be  thrilled  by  their  nonsense,  and 
while  she  is  willing  to  pound  Ireland  to  a 
jelly  on  their  appeal.  Her  only  assistance 
against  them  is  freedom. 

There  are  certain  simplicities  upon 
which  all  life  is  based.  A  man  finds  that 
he  is  hungry  and  the  knowledge  enables 
him  to  go  to  work  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 
A  man  makes  the  discovery  (it  has  been  a 
discovery  to  many)  that  he  is  an  Irishman, 
and  the  knowledge  simplifies  all  his  subse- 
quent political  action.  There  is  this  coin- 
fort  about  being  an  Irishman,  you  can  be 
entirely  Irish,  and  claim  thus  to  be  as  com- 


142      The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

plete  as  a  pebble  or  a  star.  But  no  Irish 
person  can  hope  to  be  more  than  a  muletto 
Englishman,  and  if  that  be  an  ambition 
and  an  end  it  is  not  an  heroic  one. 

But  there  is  an  Ulster  difficulty,  and  no 
amount  of  burking  it  will  solve  it.  It  is 
too  generally  conceived  among  National- 
ists that  the  attitude  of  Ulster  toward  Ire- 
land is  rooted  in  ignorance  and  bigotry. 
Allow  that  both  of  these  bad  parts  are  in- 
cluded in  the  Northern  outlook,  they  do 
not  explain  the  Ulster  standpoint;  and 
nothing  can  explain  the  attitude  of  official 
Irish  vis-a-vis  with  Ulster. 

What  has  the  Irish  Party  ever  done  to 
allay  Northern  prejudice,  or  bring  the  dis- 
contented section  into  line  with  the  rest  of 
Ireland  ?  The  answer  is  pathetically  com- 
plete. They  have  done  nothing.  Or,  if 
they  have  done  anything,  it  was  only  that 
which  would  set  every  Northerner  grind- 


The  Irish  Questions  143 

ing  his  teeth  in  anger.  At  a  time  when 
Orangeism  was  dying  they  raised  and  mar- 
shalled the  Hibernians,  and  we  have  the 
Ulsterman's  answer  to  the  Hibernians  in 
the  situation  by  which  we  are  confronted 
to-day.  If  the  Party  had  even  a  little 
statesmanship  among  them  they  would  for 
the  past  ten  years  have  marched  up  and 
down  the  North  explaining  and  mollifying 
and  courting  the  Black  Northerner.  But, 
like  good  Irishmen,  they  could  not  tear 
themselves  away  from  England,  and  they 
paraded  that  country  where  parade  was 
not  so  urgent,  and  they  made  orations 
there  until  the  mere  accent  of  an  Irishman 
must  make  Englishmen  wail  for  very  bore- 
dom. 

Some  of  that  parade  might  have  glad- 
dened the  eyes  of  the  Belfast  citizens;  a 
few  of  those  orations  might  have  assisted 
the  men  of  Derry  to  comprehend  that,  for 


144      The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

the  good  of  our  common  land,  Home  Rule 
and  the  unity  of  a  nation  was  necessary  if 
only  to  rid  the  country  of  these  blatherers. 

Let  the  Party  explain  why,  among  their 
political  duties,  they  neglected  the  duty  of 
placating  Ulster  in  their  proper  persons. 
Why,  in  short,  they  boycotted  Ulster  and 
permitted  political  and  religious  and  ra- 
cial antagonism  to  grow  inside  of  Ireland 
unchecked  by  any  word  from  them  upon 
that  ground.  Were  they  afraid  * 'nuts'7 
would  be  thrown  at  them?  Whatever 
they  dreaded,  they  gave  Ulster  the  widest 
of  wide  berths,  and  wherever  else  they 
were  visible  and  audible,  they  were  silent 
and  unseen  in  that  part  of  Ireland. 

The  Ulster  grievance  is  ostensibly  re- 
ligious; but  safeguards  on  this  count  are 
so  easily  created  and  applied  that  this 
issue  might  almost  be  left  out  of  account. 
The  real  difficulty  is  economic,  and  it  is  a 


The  Irish  Questions  145 

tangled  one.  But  unless  profit  and  loss 
are  immediately  discernible  the  soul  of 
man  is  not  easily  stirred  by  an  account- 
ant's tale,  and  therefore  the  religious  ban- 
ner has  been  waved  for  our  kinsfolk  of 
Ulster,  and  under  the  sacred  emblem  they 
are  fighting  for  what  some  people  call 
mammon,  but  which  may  be  in  truth  just 
plain  bread  and  butter. 

Before  we  can  talk  of  Ireland  a  nation 
we  must  make  her  one.  A  nation,  politi- 
cally speaking,  is  an  aggregation  of  people 
whose  interests  are  identical;  and  the  in- 
terests of  Ulster  with  the  rest  of  Ireland 
rather  than  being  identical  are  antagon- 
istic. It  is  England  orders  and  pays  for 
the  Belfast  ships,  and  it  is  to  Britain  or 
under  the  goodwill  of  the  British  power 
that  Ulster  conducts  her  huge  woollen 
trade.  Economically  the  rest  of  Ireland 
scarcely  exists  for  Ulster,  and  whoever  in- 


146      The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

sists  on  regarding  the  Northern  question 
from  an  ideal  plane  is  wasting  his  own 
time  and  the  time  of  every  one  who  listens 
to  him.  The  safeguards  which  Ulster  will 
demand,  should  events  absolutely  force 
her  to  it,  may  sound  political  or  religious, 
they  will  be  found  essentially  economic, 
and  the  root  of  them  all  will  be  a  water- 
tight friendship  with  England,  and  any- 
thing that  smells,  however  distantly,  of 
hatred  for  England  will  be  a  true  menace 
to  Ulster.  We  must  swallow  England  if 
Ulster  is  to  swallow  us,  and  until  that  fact 
becomes  apparent  to  Ireland  the  Ulster 
problem  cannot  be  even  confronted,  let 
alone  solved. 

The  words  Sinn  Fein  mean  "  Our- 
selves," and  it  is  of  ourselves  I  write  in 
this  chapter.  More  urgent  than  any  po- 
litical emancipation  is  the  drawing  to- 
gether of  men  of  good  will  in  the  endeav- 


The  Irish  Questions  147 

our  to  assist  their  necessitous  land.  Our 
eyes  must  be  withdrawn  from  the  ends  of 
the  earth  and  fixed  on  that  which  is  around 
us  and  which  we  can  touch.  No  politician 
will  talk  to  us  of  Ireland  if  by  any  trick 
he  can  avoid  the  subject.  His  tale  is  still 
of  Westminster  and  Chimborazo  and  the 
Mountains  of  the  Moon.  Irishmen  must 
begin  to  think  for  themselves  and  of  them- 
selves, instead  of  expending  energy  on 
causes  too  distant  to  be  assisted  or  hin- 
dered by  them.  I  believe  that  our  human 
material  is  as  good  as  will  be  found  in  the 
world.  No  better,  perhaps,  but  not  worse. 
And  I  believe  that  all  but  local  politics  are 
unfruitful  and  soul-destroying.  We  have 
an  island  that  is  called  little. — It  is  more 
than  twenty  times  too  spacious  for  our 
needs,  and  we  will  not  have  explored  the 
last  of  it  in  our  children's  lifetime.  We 
have  more  problems  to  resolve  in  our 


148      The  Insurrection  in  Dublin 

towns  and  cities  than  many  generations  of 
minds  will  get  tired  of  striving  with. 
Here  is  the  world,  and  all  that  perplexes 
or  delights  the  world  is  here  also.  Noth- 
ing is  lost.  Not  even  brave  men.  They 
have  been  used.  From  this  day  the  great 
adventure  opens  for  Ireland.  The  Vol- 
unteers are  dead,  and  the  call  is  now  for 
volunteers. 


THE  END 


PRINTED   IN   THX   tSITED   STATES   0»   AUIRICA 


T 


HE  following  pages  contain   advertisements    of 
Macmillan  books  by  the  same  author. 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

The  Rocky  Road  to  Dublin 

Boards,  I2mot  $1.00 

"  You  can  afford  to  miss  much  poetry,  but  you  cannot  af- 
ford to  miss  James  Stephens's  work."  —  Review  of  Reviews. 

"James  Stephens'  new  book  of  poetry  has  about  it  a  danc- 
ing inspiration,  a  naive  directness,  a  serene  simplicity  of  spirit, 
that  places  his  work  near  to  the  work  of  William  Blake.  None 
but  an  Irish  poet  can  see  so  vividly  the  joy  and  the  drollery  of 
life,  the  sadness  and  the  terror,  and  James  Stephens  stands 
first  in  the  expression  of  these  things.  Here  the  '  happy  Celt ' 
is  portrayed  as  you  have  always  imagined  him;  here  is  the 
best  out  of  the  green  island  across  the  sea. 

"...  a  genuine  Irish  genius,  one  in  whose  heart  there 
boils  and  bubbles  fantasy  and  tears,  the  irony  that  burns  and  a 
bitter-sweet  humor  that  is  mad."  —  JAMES  HUNEKER. 

"  These  little  verses  are  as  Irish  as  a  shamrock,  as  fresh  as 
the  dew  on  a  clover,  and  as  individual  as  the  song  of  a  hermit 
thrush.  Not  since  Stevenson's  '  Child's  Garden  of  Verse  '  has 
there  been  anything  more  full  of  spirit  of  childhood. ": — Brook- 
lyn Eagle. 

"'The  Rocky  Road  to  Dublin,'  like  its  predecessors,  is 
mad,  sane,  merry,  sad,  and  pure  delight  from  cover  to  cover." 
—  Congregationalist. 


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Songs  from  the  Clay  ci*tk,  tamo,  $fM, 

"A  charming  impishness  invests  the  poems  of  James  Stephens,  called 
'  Songs  from  the  Clay."  "  —  Christian  Advocate. 

"The  word  'pagan'  occurs  not  unnaturally  in  an  attempt  to  catch 
his  personality.  There  is  something  sunburnt  and  wind-touched,  some- 
thing primitive  and  wild  in  his  lyrics,  that  sets  them  apart  and  gives 
them  savor.  At  times,  his  rustic  pictures  carry  one  straight  back  to 
Virgil's  '  Eclogues,'  or  to  Theocritus."  —  Bellman. 

'The  tremor  of  wildness  in  nature,  the  glint  of  unseen  wings,  the 
beat  of  fairies'  feet,  the  tune  on  the  wind,  the  terror  in  the  void  —  it 
is  perhaps  the  special  privilege  of  the  Celt  to  discern  these  things ; 
but  few  even  of  the  Celts  have  presented  them  with  such  witty  brevity, 
such  choice  felicity  of  phrase,  as  Mr.  Stephens  commands  from  his 
happy  muse."  —  Harriet  Monroe.,  in  "  Poetry." 

"  A  master  of  clear-cut  description  and  keen  satire,  James  Stephens 
enlivens  the  one  with  the  touch  of  genuine  human  emotion  and  softens 
the  other  with  a  whimsical  reflection  or  a  good-humored  smile." 

—  Independent. 

"  In  his  last  book  of  verse,  *  Songs  from  the  Clay,'  one  hears  sudden, 
swift  laughter,  lusty  vagabonds  singing  by  the  hedgerows,  the  stirring 
of  invisible  angelic  wings,  and  the  sardonic  chuckles  of  malevolent  imps. 
Among  the  poets  who  have  shared  in  the  Celtic  renaissance,  Stephens 
is  the  crystal-gazer.  He  bends  patiently  over  the  great  crystal  of  life 
and  records  the  significance  of  the  shadow  shapes  that  gather  and  dis- 
solve within  its  confusing  twilight,  chanting  to  us  truly,  that  no  man 
shall  ever  be  able  to  say,  —  whence,  nor  whither,  —  and,  that  nought 
endures  at  the  end  save  the  crystal  itself.  You  can  afford  to  miss  much 
poetry,  but  you  cannot  afford  to  miss  James  Stephens'  three  collections, 
'Insurrections,'  'The  Hill  of  Vision,'  and  'Songs  from  the  Clay.'" 

—  Review  of  Reviews. 


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"There  is  not  another  book  like  this  '  Crock  of  Gold '  in  English 
literature.  There  are  many  books  like  pieces  of  it,  bat  the  humor 
and  the  style  —  these  things  are  Mr.  Stephens's  own  peculiar  gift." 

—  The  London  Standard. 

The  Crock  of  Gold 

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PRESS  OPINIONS 

"  It  is  crammed  full  of  life  and  beauty  .  .  .  this  delicious,  fantastical, 
amorphous,  inspired  medley  of  topsy-turvydom."  —  The  Times. 

"  In  '  The  Crock  of  Gold '  Mr.  Stephens  gives  the  measure  of  a  larger 
and  more  individual  talent  than  could  have  been  absolutely  foretold.  .  .  . 
There  has  been  nothing  hitherto  quite  like  it,  but  it  is  safe  to  prophesy 
that  by  and  by  there  will  be  plenty  of  imitators  to  take  it  for  their  pattern. 
.  .  .  Mr.  Stephens  has  produced  a  remarkably  fine  and  attractive  work 
of  art."  —  The  Athenceum. 

"  We  have  read  nothing  quite  like  '  The  Crock  of  Gold.'  It  has  a 
charm  and  humor  peculiar  to  itself,  and  places  its  author  high  in  the  ranks 
of  imaginative  poetic  writers."  —  The  Globe. 

"  The  final  state  (in  the  case  of  the  reviewer)  was  one  of  complete  sur- 
render to  the  author  —  'go  on,  go  on,  fiddle  on  your  theme  what  har- 
monics you  will;  this  is  delightful.'  .  .  .  Mr.  Stephens's  novel,  'The 
Charwoman's  Daughter,'  was  a  remarkable  book,  and,  in  this  one,  he 
shows  he  can  succeed  as  well  in  quite  other  directions."  —  The  Nation. 

"...  A  genuine  Irish  Genius,  one  in  whose  heart  there  boil  and 
bubble  fantasy  and  tears,  the  irony  that  burns  and  a  bitter-sweet  humor 
that  is  mad."  — James  Huneker. 

"  He  shows  a  mastery  of  humorous  and  imaginative  prose."  —  The 
Post. 

"...  A  fantasy,  but  a  striking  exception  to  the  rule  that  fantasies  are 
usually  dull.  It  does  not  matter  what  it  means,  or  whether  it  means  any- 
thing. It  is  like  sunlight,  ozone,  and  high  spirits.  You  splash  in  it  as  in 
a  summer  sea.  There  is  no  book  in  the  world  in  the  least  like  it,  and 
probably  there  will  never  be  another,  which  is  the  best  reason  for  making 
the  acquaintance  of  this  one  before  it  is  out  of  print."  —  Atlantic  Monthly, 


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The  Demi-Gods 

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"To  write  'The  Demi-Gods,'  Mr.  Stephens  has  dipped  again  into 
the  sparkling  fountain  of  his  apparently  inexhaustible  originality.  As 
was  said  of '  The  Crock  of  Gold,'  it  does  not  matter  what  it  means  or 
whether  it  means  anything.  It  goes  to  our  heads  as  we  surrender  our- 
selves to  it  in  a  dazed  fascination."  — New  York  Times. 

"  It  would  be  hard  to  match  anywhere  in  recent  literature  the  fun 
and  imaginative  quality  of  the  narrative  of  the  theft  by  an  archangel 
('  Finding  is  keepings,'  said  the  archangel)  of  Brian  O'Brien's  thrip- 
pence,  whereby  heaven  and  hell  were  convulsed  and  Ireland  dis- 
turbed." —  Outlook. 

"  It  is  a  delightful  book.  The  fun,  the  absurdity,  the  pathos,  and 
above  all  the  poetry  ring  true."  —  Sun  Weekly. 

"  It's  like  a  spring  rainbow,  this  story,  so  full  is  it  of  wit  and  wis- 
dom and  tears  and  chuckles  and  tender,  half-sorrowful  smiles."  —  Chi- 
cago Herald. 

"  Only  James  Stephens,  the  Irishman,  could  have  written  this  tale." 
—  Pittsburgh  Post. 

"  Every  one  who  was  enthusiastic  over  '  The  Crock  of  Gold '  ought 
to  be  doubly  enthusiastic  over  '  The  Demi-Gods.'  ...  It  is  the  work 
of  a  writer  of  vision,  of  frolic  and  original  humour,  and  of  splendid  elo- 
quence." —  London  Daily  News. 

"  Scenes  of  freshness  and  beauty,  charm  and  humour,  and  a  light- 
stepping  grace  belong  to  Mr.  Stephens's  new  book,  as  to  all  others 
which  he  has  made.  .  .  .  Over  the  book's  manner  of  writing  and  its 
happenings  there  is  a  shining  quality  of  pure  magic."  —  London  Ob- 
server. 

"  It  is  a  book  of  obstinate  liveliness  and  charm."  —  London  Alhe- 
naum.  

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Here  Are  Ladies 


"  '  Here  Are  Ladies  '  is  the  maddest,  sanest,  merriest,  saddest  collection 
of  little  stories  and  essays  that  has  come  to  the  reviewer's  table  in  a  six 
month."  —  Philadelphia  Press. 

"  Perhaps  the  real  charm  and  strength  of  the  book  lie  in  the  fact  that 
it  is  a  man's  book  ;  a  book  free  of  the  drawing-room  conventions,  decent 
or  indecent,  which  now  obsess  our  fiction  ;  a  book  with  the  free  and  hearty 
voice  of  one  honest  man  speaking  to  another  in  his  shop  or  at  his  club." 

—  The  Nation. 

"  In  the  present  volume  there  are  fun,  fancy,  philosophy,  and  some- 
times the  tragic  note,  combined  with  a  de  Maupassant  quality  of  tense, 
dramatic  characterization  which  condenses  a  whole  life-story  into  a  few 
pages  and  makes  the  characters  live  human  beings."  —  The  Outlook. 

"  It  is  a  welcome  relief  to  run  across  a  new  author  of  real  talent,  in  the 
midst  of  a  whole  group  of  disappointing  volumes  ;  and  a  case  in  point  is 
James  Stephens,  author  of  '  Here  Are  Ladies.'  "  —  The  Bookman. 

"  Not  only  are  there  ladies  here,  but  men  and  incidents,  love  and  ha- 
tred —  all  sorts  of  side-lights  and  glimpses  at  life  from  a  whimsical,  humor- 
ous point  of  view  that  does  not  lack  human  feeling."  —  New  York  Times. 

"  One  can't  give  the  flavor  of  the  book  by  quoting  a  few  disconnected 
passages.  As  in  "  The  Crock  of  Gold,"  here  again  we  have  humor  of  a 
fresh  and  delightful  quality,  whimsy  and  philosophy,  poetry  and  romance, 
all  squared  up  with  life,  and  every  page  reflecting  one  of  the  most  original 
and  interesting  personalities  that  has  recently  appeared  in  literature." 

—  AT.  Y.  Glode. 


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Insurrections  Boards,  /**<>,  $40 

"  A  volume  which  cannot  fail  to  appeal  because  of  its  graceful  ex- 
pression, sincerity  of  purpose  and  fine  feeling  for  natural  beauty."  — 
Providence  Journal. 

The  Hill  of  Vision  cw*f /*«..  f/jy 

"  '  The  Hill  of  Vision '  is  an  unusual  book.  Stephens's  point  of 
view  is  thoughtful  and  thought  compelling."  —  Brooklyn  Eagle. 

"  '  Insurrections '  —  a  booklet  of  brilliant  verse.  ...  '  The  Hill  of 
Vision  '  —  a  fine  result  of  the  new  Celtic  movement."  —  San  Francisco 
Chronicle. 

"A  book  has  come  to  our  desk  called  'The  Hill  of  Vision'  —  a 
book  that  has  about  it  an  air  of  inspiration  and  a  naive  directness  and 
intimacy  that  place  it,  in  spirit,  near  to  the  work  of  William  Blake."  — 
Literary  Digest. 

"  No  reader  of  poetry  can  afford  to  let  '  The  Hill  of  Vision '  pass. 
It  is  one  of  the  noteworthy  volumes  in  the  history  of  the  Irish  Literary 
Revival."  —  Boston  Herald. 

"  What  is  most  distinctive  in  Mr.  Stephens's  poetry  is  its  unflinch- 
ing view  of  life,  its  sheer  penetration  into  the  futility  of  solution  or  the 
comfort  of  compromise  ...  a  new  paganism,  rigorous  and  unafraid." 
—  Chicago  Tribune. 

"...  An  unusual  sense  of  all  the  values  of  rhythm  and  a  striking 
power  in  the  manipulation  of  words  in  picture-making."  —  The  In- 
dependent. 

"  Oaring  in  occasional  subjects  and  in  untrammeled  mode  of  ex- 
pression." —  Buffalo  Express. 


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000047559 


